Tips for Sweep Picking a Guitar
Sweep picking is an advanced guitar technique that requires you to literally sweep the pick across the strings while rapidly fretting different arpeggios. Some of the most spectacular guitarists in the world use this technique when playing fast passages. As with any high-level guitar technique, learning to sweep pick requires considerable practice.
Other People Are Reading
-
Pick Positioning
-
When attempting to sweep pick on the guitar, hold the pick fairly close to the tip. This placement allows you greater control over the pick and can prevent the pick from bending slightly, which can cost you speed and precision. Your pick should also hit the strings at roughly a 45-degree angle when sweep picking. Attacking the strings from this angle will allow your pick to glide smoothly over the strings.
Muting
-
The ability to mute the strings when sweep picking is extremely important. The best guitarists only allow one note to bleed into another. Guitarists rarely want notes to bleed together when sweep picking. The key to clean sweep picking is fretting the note as the pick comes in contact with it and immediately releasing the note. This process can be tricky when fretting some of the chords commonly used with sweep picking. It is important not to forget to use your pick hand to help mute the strings. By gently resting your palm on the deeper strings until they are used, you eliminate the possibility that they will accidentally ring out while you sweep the higher notes.
-
Arpeggios
-
An arpeggio is a chord that is struck one note at a time. Because of the string-by-string nature of sweep picking, arpeggios are used extremely often in sweep picking. By learning how to play several different arpeggios all over the guitar neck, you will prepare yourself for learning other guitarist's sweep-picking riffs, as well as giving you the tools needed to write your own. Don't just stop at learning major and minor chords either. Seventh chords, suspended chords, diminished chords and augmented chords are useful for sweep picking as well.
Build Speed
-
Because sweep picking tends to be performed at fast tempos, it is a difficult technique to learn at speed. Instead, begin learning how to sweep pick by playing a simple three or four-note arpeggio on the high strings of the guitar at a slow speed. Increase the tempo daily until you can play the arpeggio quickly and cleanly. Repeat this process for other arpeggios and sweep-picking riffs you intend to learn. A metronome is extremely useful for this slow building of speed.
-
References
- Photo Credit Jupiterimages/Creatas/Getty Images
