Welcome: Rhythm and Lead Overlapping

As you know, it's important to have some solid lead guitar skills, so that you can step into the spotlight and play a great solo when that is needed. And you also know that it is just as important to be able to sit back and blend in with the groove and let the singer take the spotlight.

Up until now we've kept rhythm and lead playing very separate, but now that you have a basic understanding of both of these skill sets it's time to start exploring how the two can overlap and work together. This happens a lot in country where you work a little melody line into your rhythm part to lead between two chords; or to add a little fill in the space between vocal phrases.

In this tutorial we'll look at some very basic examples of this. This is all fairly simple stuff, but it makes up an absolutely crucial part of the vocabulary used in Country guitar playing. Let's get started!