Sweep Picking Basics This is just a collection of drills and tips to help your sweep picking technique- some may help you, some may not, some you may know, others you might not. Browse through them and give them a try. 1.) Use a VERY lightgrip on the pick. Don't try to force it through the strings, just let it flow. With a lighter grip on the pick, it won't get "hung up" on the strings as much. As an added bonus, this will help keep your picking arm loose while you're playing. Incidentally, playing with a looser grip on the pick does wonders for your alternate picking, too. You want to be holding it so loosely that you almost, but never quite, drop the thing- ever wondered why Vai has so many picks taped tothe back of his headstock? 2.) The best sweep technique in the world won't do you any good if your fretting hand can't keep up. Easy way to work on this? Play a few arpeggio patterns, but play them with ALTERNATE picking, instead of sweeping. It'll do wonders for your alternate picking chops, and it'll help the fingerings "flow" better. 3.) To mute or not to mute? Good question. one of the best sweepers i've ever heard doesn't mute, on the grounds that if your fret-hand muting technique is good enough, you shouldn't need to. Basically, just slightly lift your finger as you come off the string, and "roll" your hands across the fretboard. This will cause all the notes to be deadened as you move on to the next ones in the arpeggio. The catch is, if you lift your finger in this manner over a harmonic node, you'll cause the harmonic to ring out. I haven't found a good way to bypass this yet. As my experience has been it's more prominant on the bass strings than the treble, I tend to mute the bass strings a bit with my palm, but leave the treble ones unmuted. Of course, i'm not that exceptional a sweep picker, so maybe you don't want to do this. However, i'd recommend spending some time playing totally un-muted, with a light palm mute on the bass, and with a light palm mute throughout. 4.) One thing that i'v noticed in a lot of videos i've seen of good sweepers and that seems to help me to get a more fluid sweep going is to do it with a slightly circular sweeping motion, or with a slight figure-8 to the sweep. try it, if it works for you, cool, if not, then that's cool too. (Just keep in mind a figure 8 may be a little impractical on sweeps shorter than 4 or 5 strings) And finally, one drill i got from GuitarWar's theJonezter that's helped me a lot and sounds pretty cool, to boot- a series of alternating minor and major arps that moves you up the neck. give it a try, it works most of the more common sweep patterns all at once. Em Emaj 4 1 2 3 3 4 1 4 3 3 2 1 4 1 3 3 3 4 1 4 3 3 3 1 |-12p7---------------------7h12p7---------------------7-| |------8-----------------8--------9-----------------9---| |--------9-------------9------------9-------------9-----| |----------9---------9----------------9---------9-------| |------------10p7h10--------------------11p7h11---------| |-------------------------------------------------------| Am Amaj (to F#m) 4 1 3 1 2 4 4 4 2 1 2 1 4 1 2 1 3 4 4 4 3 1 2 1 4 |-12p8--------------------------8h12p9--------------------------9h14-| |------10--------------------10--------10--------------------10------| |---------9----------------9--------------9----------------9---------| |-----------10----------10------------------11----------11-----------| |--------------12----12------------------------12----12--------------| |-----------------12------------------------------12-----------------|etc. When you finish this sequence, reach up to that 14th fret note and continue in F#m, then F#maj, etc. Enjoy! :o)