Lead guitar exercises should warm you up to play accurate and blistering fast leads without taking huge amounts of time and without being ridiculously tedious and time-consuming. I typically play one or two lead guitar exercises every day depending on how much time I have to dedicate to playing on a given day and whether or not I intend to spend a lot of time working on leads, fills, and solos.

I thought I might take a moment to share one of the basic warm up lead guitar exercises I use just about every time I pick up a guitar. By the time I've run through this exercise on each string my two hands are completely in sync with each other and ready to play blisteringly fast leads with minimal effort and no unwanted noise or clunky notes.

As per norm I need to quickly apprise you of my notation style so you and I can understand each other here. My notation style is (string/fret/finger). This means when I write 1/5/m I am telling you to press down on the first string (low E) just behind the 5th fret with your middle finger. Likewise if I write 5/10/r that means what? Press down on the 5th string (B string) just behind the 10th fret with your ring finger. Does that make sense? Great.

This example takes place entirely on one string at a time, but I make it a practice to play these lead guitar exercises on each string daily. It is important that each note sound absolutely perfectly, without buzzing and in perfect even tempo. Do not rush through the easy part and slow down at the hard parts. Keep your tempo even and relaxed. As you improve, speed up the tempo but continue to keep the tempo even.

Start on the 1st (low E) string. Play the note open (1/0/O), next press at the 2nd fret with your middle finger (1/2/m). The rest of the priniciple pattern is 1/2/m, 1/1/i, 1/3/r, 1/2/m, 1/4/p, 1/3/r, 1/2/m, 1/0/O. In other words start with your hand positioned such that index finger is behind the first fret and press down with m i r m p m r O (and pick with right hand at same time). Each time your complete one repetition of the lead guitar exercises (ie when you reach the Open note), slide your hand up one fret and repeat the entire pattern, again leaving the last note as an open string. Continue the pattern, sliding up the neck one fret each time you reach the open note until you pass the 12th fret on your guitar with your index finger.

Repeat the exercise on each string. When you really get good at it, change things up by starting at the 12th fret and performing the pattern in reverse (O m r p m r i m) and sliding back down the fretboard until your index finger is at the first fret again.