# Sweep picking tips welcome



## slay (Jan 10, 2009)

*SUPER-HANDSOME MOD EDIT*: moved thread

i have been practicing this sweep pattern 

for about a week and still cant get my speed up (i didn't expect to have it nailed im just saying) 


but is this a good pattern to start with?

any other really good vids on youtube? I found this particular vid to be pretty thorough.


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## Dyingsea (Jan 10, 2009)

Getting sweeping technique down correctly to the point you don't have to think about it takes a longgggg time. Just keep practicing.


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## Demeyes (Jan 10, 2009)

Thats not a bad pattern to learn as it's used a lot in songs. However, I'd look for another few 3 string patterns to practice with that so you get all your fingers practiced from the get go and so you are familiar with more shapes when getting comfortable with the sweeping motion. 
As for speed, that's not really what you'll want to be concerned with a week into sweep picking because it takes time, and I mean a lot of time. You need to make sure you are playing everything cleanly at a slow speed first. You need to run over the patterns so that everything sounds smooth and even. I found sweep picking a comfort thing. After a while it felt very natural and thats when the speed started to come into it. I think it's something that you need to become comfortable doing and you need to have it all as one fluid motion. I've seen loads of guys who try to play it too fast too soon and they end up playing out of time, they speed up the legato bits. 
The best advice I can give is to be patient and practice and the end result will be so much better than if you start forcing it.


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## slay (Jan 10, 2009)

thanks Demeyes

yeah i notice i try to speed things up and start missing notes/sounding sloppy, guess i'll slow it down some and work on the clarity and muscle memory.


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## JJ Rodriguez (Jan 10, 2009)

Working on it slow is important, but sometimes you just have to fuck around and try shit fast, because I find the entire feel of stuff changes once you hit a certain speed. Not that I'm any good at sweeping, so take that for what it's worth


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## Stealthdjentstic (Jan 10, 2009)

InsaneGuitar.com - Sweep Picking 101 by Joel Wanasek

That website + help from a teacher makes for an awesome combo.


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## lefty robb (Jan 11, 2009)

the 3 and 4 string stuff took me months and months to get down right, I'm still working on the 5 and 6 string stuff and its been a few years since I really started working on it. Just remember its probably one of the hardest techniques there is on guitar and your not going to get it in a week. The hardest I find are finger rolls and ascending sweeps.


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## Mr. Big Noodles (Jan 11, 2009)

I think that five string triad sweeps are much easier than three string sweeps, as your hands have more time to move, and it encourages the technique more. You should ideally go for clean sweeps when you start out, but if you can get your hands to match up, there's no reason that you can't clean it up later. Just make sure your picking is in the correct direction.


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## vontetzianos (Jan 11, 2009)

I was able to tackle sweep picking in about a month. The way I learned it was to seperate the two hands' movements. ie, get used to raking the pick down all the strings and up again, and doing this with two strings then 3 etc all the way to all six... then eventually 8. 

The next thing was to get used to the 'rolling' motion of the left hand. I took the simple A minor 3 string arpeggio. 14th fret G string, 13th B, 12th E, and practice VERY slowly getting the back and forth motion until I got it up to speed. I then the F maj7th arpeggio by adding the pinky onto the 15th of the D string and doing the same back and forth motion in groups of 4, triplets and sixteenth note triplets. 

At this stage I moved to add the upstroke and pulloff in the 3 string A minor arpeggio on the 17th fret E string, which made it easy to go to the 5 string A minor arpeggio.

The thing I recommend is if you have become familar with the fingering and have done the slow metronome increase and can sorta do it, figure out which part of the sweep is most difficult, and practice only that part until its comfortable and then add notes in either direction.


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## Demeyes (Jan 12, 2009)

JJ Rodriguez said:


> Working on it slow is important, but sometimes you just have to fuck around and try shit fast, because I find the entire feel of stuff changes once you hit a certain speed. Not that I'm any good at sweeping, so take that for what it's worth



Yeah, I would say that you have to try stuff out fast too, but not to rely on it. Maybe at then end of a few minutes practice of sweeping slower try out a few shapes at your fastest and see how you cope.


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## ShadyDavey (Feb 8, 2009)

Don't be fooled into thinking one methodology of sweep picking represents the pinnacle - one of the very best things I found for sweep picking was experimenting with when and where I wanted to use upstrokes and downstrokes - its not as straightforward as it might seem.

E--------12-15-12
B-------13-------13
G-----14-----------14

Now, with that simple Am arpeggio there are a few different ways to approach the picking. 

First would be Down, Down, Down, Up, Pulloff, Up, Down. The problem here is that you move from an upstroke to a downstroke by bringing your hand up over the G string - its one motion too many. 

Second is to do Up, Down, Down, Up, Down, Up, Up giving you the same amount of notes with less right hand movement.

You could even go Down, Down, Down, Hammeron, Pulloff, Up, Up but I personally never liked that feeling of seperation between the hand movement and the notes (just a personal foilble - its definately a popular approach).

I can't remember the exact excercises I got shown but essentially they covered the second technique extensively (when Shawn Baxter taught at GIT in London he was massively into sweep picking in that style - I've seen Guthrie Govan do that as well).

The most basic permutation was to only play a single triad arpeggio in ascending form over three strings(Up, Down, Down) followed by descending (Down, Up, Up) before adding on the Octave and using the second variation from the Am example - you can then add a fourth and fifth or sixth string as appropriate (here's the time to practice that barring/rolling technique with your finger) The key to start with is to absolutely minimise the amount of movement the left hand makes until such time as you can pick it cleanly and quickly. 

Couple of other things that I remember made a big difference for me:

Muting: Be sure that you mute appropriately in order to keep the notes seperate. I was a huge fan of Frank Gambale and always used the tip of whichever finger was playing to mute the adjacent string below, as well as all the strings above the one I was playing. Combined with the palm of the right hand on the rest of the strings below it meant that not only could I play with a lot of gain and remain clean, it also allowed me to move my right hand a little more in order to keep the angle between wrist and pick more comfortable whilst picking on the higher strings (again, might just be a personal preference but wedging my wrist in one spot and keeping it there felt decidedly alien).

Metronome - start off slowly as usual and build up your speed as I'm sure your familiar with. Whenever you reach a speed you feel comfortable at, but beyond which your technique falls apart don't stop. Instead, set the metronome a couple of clicks even higher and attempt to play the lick. Shawn Lane was an advocate of that technique simply to change your mindset a little. Mr Baxter went on to compare it to training for an athletic event - to get the very best performance you have to push your capabilities (in a safe manner) beyond your percieved limitations. When you go back to your "safe" tempo you'll find the lick feels significantly easier.

Last thoughts - Kill two birds with one stone and as you practice the arpeggios (especially as you start with triads) work through the string groups and inversions on each set of strings to get the shapes and sounds firmly lodged in your mind. After you know (for example) the Am over the whole neck you can start practicing "stacks" across the neck (yep, 4, 5, 6 string arpeggio's) as well as movement between positions with the emphasis on breaking out of the traditional shapes and incorporating slides/taps/legato to ascend the neck......and as much as I hate to say it in a topic on sweep picking; sometimes the best arpeggios are those which mix techniques and note groupings in order to generate a less predictable sound than we're used to hearing with the atypical sweeping. 

Then you can start looking at scalar sweeping, arpeggios of other chords and all that other good stuff - but you'll have a firm foundation to do it with.

(Sorry for rambling. I might not actively play atm but I remember my nascent sweep picking very well and I hope that this old fart at least helps someone out ^^ )


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## budda (Feb 8, 2009)

I can't really sweep, its annoying. I can't get that smooth sound going down and back up, across just 3 strings. picking back up towards the lower strings sounds a lot cleaner then picking down - im not sure why.

it's not a technique i practise a lot, as i dont practise a lot  lol.

but one thing i've noticed whenever i attempt the solo for "The river dragon has come" by nevermore is this:

the less I actually pick, the better it sounds. I can get a way better sweep-sound if i do hammerons for 2 notes on 1 string vs pick a note. This of course results in a picking pattern that isnt smooth, but the notes coming out of the amp sound a lot smoother.

sweeping is a bitch, im not sure i'll ever get it right


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## Maniacal (Feb 8, 2009)

If there is one thing I can do on guitar, its sweep. I havent read much on what you other guys have said but here are some ideas..

I suggest doing many things...

Start with 2 string arpeggios as 8th notes:

e 12 p 8 8
b 10

then as triplets:

e 12 p 8 
b 10

Learn the major/minor/dim/aug arps as 2 string. 

Then learn them all as 3 string sweeps. I know some people say 5 string sweeps are ultimately easier than 3 string sweeps at high tempos but it seems ridiculous to practice 5 string arps if you cant play 2/3 and 4 string arps. 

While learning all your 2 and 3 string arpeggios, also practice rolling with each finger of your fret hand across 2 and 3 strings. 

Isolate your picking hand and work on that motion alone, to a metronome. The biggest factor for messy sweep picking is a bad sweep picking motion that is not exactly in time with your fret hand. 

When you are comfortable with 2 and 3 string combinations, learn 4 and 5 strings. At this point you should also start mastering your 2 and 3 string arps with complex sequences and subdivisions like quintuplets to triplets etc

Learn all the inversions of every arpeggio, this will give you some really crazy exercises and massive stretches. 

Practice all of the arpeggios with alternate picking as well, an excellent picking workout!

"Practice slow".... very obvious and loads of you have probably said it. But as well as practicing slow, also work on burst exercises to increase you maximum tempo. 

Nobody will read this so I will now stop, and eat my chinese.


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## bulletbass man (Feb 8, 2009)

The biggest think imo is how your holding the pick. after I changed my picking technique some I got a million times better at sweeping. You want to hold the pick so that both upstrokes and downstrokes get the same type of resistance in the pick. Also you want to hold the pick pretty loosely. If if it's too stiff then the extra resistance will make it so that your hand gets a uneven stroke. Most of all it comes with practice. I'm pretty good at sweeping now. only have difficulties when I have to cross fingers on a particularrly difficult pattern. 

Take it slow especially on larger patterns. But on the little 3 string sweeps I'd suggest trying full speed right away. Also use patterns which don't require to use a single finger on multiple strings at first. Basically a combination of fast paced but easy patterns and then slow paced but difficult patterns will get you the best results. Eventually you'll get the slower ones to a quicker pace and will also learn to combine smaller patterns to make larger ones. Sweeping a single pattern is generally very easy for me. It's only the continous patterns that give me any real difficulty. (Loomis or Becker style sweeping)


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## budda (Feb 8, 2009)

tom, you hit upon something that i haev trouble with - i cant get the feel of my upstrokes (which feel easy) have the same as downstrokes (which are stiff).


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## ShadyDavey (Feb 8, 2009)

Don't know if it will help but I've seen a few guys use a rigid thumb/finger grip whilst sweeping but I've also seen a few that allow the thumb to flex to allow the pick to change angle and keep the picking motion quite small - look carefully at Frank and its something he does.

I tended towards that method for extended periods of sweeping but for shorter phrases I dug in and kept the same grip/angle as I did for alternate picking - might be worth trying that, or having a good look at how much pressure you use in either case. I'd lay odds that your downstrokes are heavier than your upstrokes (most people's are unless your initials happen to be PG) so thats another area to examine.


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## CrushingAnvil (Feb 9, 2009)

hey man, I never thought this video would TRULY come in handy but note my practise routine:



Some bits are off but thats what I do.

Eg. I play it at 130 quarter notes - half notes - whole notes. I do that for about 30 minutes then I do 80 with 8th notes. or whatever, Im not sure If I can even play 80 - 8th notes but Its just an example, Its subjective.

I can sweet a lot better than I can shred - In my opinion its easier to sweep. just keep at it man, play it slow because it will pay off when your timing is perfect and you keep time without fail.

Good luck!

PS. I know noodles hates my videos but the jokes on him, this one came in handy


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