Online Guitar Lessons

by Andy Ridgeway

Many would agree that sweep picking is one of the hardest yet most rewarding guitar techniques to master. Of all the techniques I’d have to say that sweep picking is the one that is most often done wrong, so I’m going to tell you the most commonly made sweep picking mistakes so you can avoid them. Oh, and please bear in mind the most important thing with sweep-picking is to practice slowly and accurately!…more on this later.

Firstly let’s make sure we know what sweep picking is.

Sweep picking is a very efficient way of picking. You may have heard of alternate picking which involves alternating between picking downstrokes and upstrokes. Try playing the arpeggio in figure 1 using alternate picking:

Figure 1

E||————10–13–13–10————–||

B||——–11———————-11———||

G||*–12——————————12—-*||

D||*——————————————-*||

A||———————————————||

E||———————————————||

……….d….d..d…..u….d….u…….u….u

d=downstroke u=upstroke

Not easy is it? That’s because in this example, alternate picking has a lot of wasted motion. After you play the first note with a downstroke you then need to play the second note with an upstroke. To do so you first have to pass over the B-string and pick ‘up’. You then have to skip over the B-string to get to the next note on the E-string etc, etc. And that’s just the first few notes. How very inefficient!

Now try the same arpeggio but with the following picking directions:

Figure2

E||————10–13–13–10—————-||

B||——–11———————-11———||

G||*–12——————————12—-*||

D||*——————————————*||

A||———————————————||

E||———————————————||

……….d….d…d….u….d…..u……u…u

Now that makes more sense. By picking “down, down, down” on the first three notes, we find our plectrum ready for each note as it comes.

We are almost sweep-picking at this point, but not quite! This is where many people go wrong so read this carefully.

Picking the strings in a conventional manner, e.g. “pluck, pluck” is not sweeping. To sweep pick you must “push” the plectrum from one string to the next. To sweep-pick those last three notes you must “pull” the plectrum from one note to the next.

So to recap:

You must “push” through the strings when playing from the lower to higher strings. You must “pull” through the strings when playing from higher to lower.

You may have noticed in figure 2 that we had to use some alternate picking on the top E-string. I call this the “sweeping turnaround”. Put simply to sweep-pick in one direction you must have an odd number of notes per string. To turnaround you must have an even number of notes per string. Sometimes this involves alternate picking on one string for several notes. Look at figure 3:

Figure 3

E||—————————————–|——————————————||

B||—————————————–|——————————————||

G||*—————————————|—————————————–*||

D||*——————————–9–10-|–10–9———————————*||

A||——————8–10–12————|————12–10–8——————-||

E||—8–10–12—————————|—————————12–10–8—-||

……..d….u….d……d….u….d……d…u……d…u……u…..d…u……u…..d…u

d=downstroke u=upstroke

This is a C major scale and although the first three notes look like alternate picking, notice how sweep picking is used to move from string to string. On the D-string there are four notes so remember that to sweep-pick in one direction you must have an odd number of notes per string. To turnaround you must have an even number of notes per string.

The most common mistakes I see with this technique are as follows:

1. Inaccurate practice:

In other words, practicing too fast! Regardless how many times I tell this to people they almost always ignore it. Let me put it like this. You can play any combination of notes perfectly if you practice slowly enough. However, if you practice too fast and miss a single note or sound even slightly sloppy, you will never get sweep-picking right! Come to think of it, this applies to every technique. When you start to work up to faster speeds that’s fine as long as you don’t sacrifice accuracy. Please, please, please practice with perfect accuracy otherwise don’t practice at all!-it’s that simple….rant over!

2. Not sweeping properly:

You may think you are sweeping, but are you remembering to ‘push and pull’? Incidentally, some people call sweep-picking ‘pushing and pulling’

3. Bluffing the ’sweeping turnaround’

Remember accuracy! You can also use hammer-ons and pull-offs in the turnaround.

4. Lack of control of string noise.

Often neglected, you must be aware of string noise especially when practicing with distortion. You want to only hear one note at a time, which can be achieved with left and right hand muting. For example, subtle movements with the left hand can be used to control the strings. Look at figure 4:

Figure 4

E||————–||

B||————–||

G||————–||

D||————–||

A||———7—-||

E||—-8———||

………d…..d

Play the first note with your middle finger and the second note with your index finger. As you apply your index finger allow it to slightly touch the low E-string. This will silence the first note, which would otherwise continue to ‘ring’.

5. Not making full use of sweep-picking

Sweep picking can be used to play many things including arpeggios, scales and triads. Did you know you could even play a pentatonic scale using sweep-picking? “Surely that can’t work?” you’re thinking as the pentatonic scale only uses 2 notes per string. Correct, but try arranging the scale so there are an odd number of notes per string. Take a look at the difference between figure 5 and 6:

Figure 5

E||—————————5-8–||

B||———————-5-8——-||

G||—————–5-7————||

D||————5-7—————–||

A||——-5-7———————-||

E||–5-8—————————||

…….d.u..d.u..d.u..d.u.d.u..d.u

Figure 6

E||————————————–8–||

B||———————————10—–||

G||———————–7-9-12———-||

D||————-5-7-10——————–||

A||—–3-5-7——————————||

E||–5————————————–||

…….d..d.u..d..d..u..d..d..u..d….d…d

Figure 6 isn’t the easiest example to play, but players like Frank Gambale use this method frequently.

Of all the above points, the most important by far is accuracy and this applies to all techniques. I spent five years trying to sweep-pick fast with no success and five weeks doing it slow before mastering it. So learn from my mistakes and practice perfectly and above all enjoy learning the ultimate guitar technique that is sweep-picking!

About the author:
Andy Ridgeway is a renowned guitar player and teacher. He explains how to play guitar better, how to play lead guitar, guitar solos, sweep pick, tap and more in his guitar technique manual – “Mach 1 Guitar – Play Better Faster Guitar the Easier Way” Check out his site http://www.mach1guitar.com/ or email him a question at contact@mach1guitar.com