Playing the lead or solo at a live gig is the greatest moment for any lead guitarist and the best way to be perfect is through playing with the help of guitar backing tracks. Whether you are interested in playing lead for classic Rock, heavy metal, hard rock, bluegrass, blues guitar or any other genre, you will not be able to achieve perfection without the guitar backing tracks.

These backing tracks are re-mastered music tracks minus the vocals and the guitar. It will have the drums and the synthesizer or the rhythm guitars. Hence, it will be easier for you to play a lead for November Rain by Slash or Comfortably Numb by David Gilmour using guitar backing tracks. There are three other aspects: you will be able to remain more focused, you will be able to play the lead better and you will be able to improve Upon your timing.

Playing the lead guitar easily is not a simple task and if you are thinking of going live then you better be good. The crowd out there will push you harder and if you make a mistake, the crowd would be unforgiving. This is why guitar backing tracks are used by most guitarists to assist them in improving their lead playing. But before you start playing around with guitar backing tracks, you need to be well-versed with each and every scale for playing lead guitar and any or all guitar mprovisations.

>The three main scales that you should focus on will be the major scale, which is a 2-octave scale, the minor pentatonic scale where you will play 5 different notes, and Major pentatonic scales. The pentatonic scales are the most important scales for playing the lead and if you master them, it will be easier for you to play along with the guitar backing tracks. Here’s an example of a pentatonic scale in the A:

e-----------------------5-8-5------------------------------
B-------------------5-8-------8-5--------------------------
G--------------5-7-----------------7-5---------------------
D----------5-7-------------------------7-5-----------------
A------5-7---------------------------------7-5-------------
E--5-8------------------------------------------8-5--------

Using pentatonic scales will help you to solo over both major and minor chords and you will be able to play a lead with ease using the guitar backing tracks. The pentatonic scale is known as the staple scales for playing rock or metal guitar. They are even used by some of the legends of blues guitar.

Chord inversions use diatonic chords and are important for playing lead guitar. There are several aspects of playing the rhythm guitar well and the mastery of using chord inversions is one of them.

When you have moved from the basic to the advanced stage, you will be able to play around with most of the chords. So you probably know how best to play the A major chord, it is one of the simplest of all. If you are already a competent rhythm guitar then you probably know how to play the A major chord with three different variations: an open A major chord plus the two barre chord shapes, which has one with a root in the 6th string and the other with a root on the 5th string.

If you think with all these three positions you are ready to play your rhythm guitar then here is something that you need to know: There are several other ways of playing A major, which fall under what is called lead guitar chord inversions.

What chord inversions really mean is that you are playing the chords in inverse. If someone tells you to play a major or minor chord inversion on your lead guitar then it simply means that the major or the minor chord has to be played based on a different sequencing of the root chord, which is the 3rd and 5th.

When the root chord is right at the bottom then it can be said that the chord is "Major or Minor, Root Position". But now if we move the root chord to the top and leave the 3rd chord at the bottom then what we get is the chord "Major, or Minor, 1st Inversion". And if we raise the root further up to the middle say to the 3rd from the top then this will leave the 5th at the bottom and it will be known as chord "Major or Minor, 2nd Inversion".

When you learn how to invert the chords then it will add to your flexibility, which will help immensely while playing rhythm guitar and especially when you are trying to bring in harmony using chords. There are times when the melody can be best played using the top note of the chord and sometimes you can do it by playing the chord at the bottom or in the middle.