How to Sweep Pick on Guitar

If you stick to using alternate picking on guitar, and normal fretting techniques, you will find that you are limited in terms of speed and the complexity of notes that you can play.

Scales and arpeggios can only be played up to a certain speed, before becoming too difficult to execute properly.

This is where sweep picking excels: it is a technique that combines a sweeping motion in both hands, to achieve maximum speed on sequences of ascending or descending notes.

Knowing how to sweep pick on guitar   will enhance your ability to play licks that have a series of fast sequential descending, or ascending notes.

The basis of sweep picking, is the economy of movement in the strumming hand. Economy picking has a slightly different emphasis, which is mainly centered around up and down strokes of your pick. Because sweep picking on guitar uses as little changing of direction as possible in the strumming hand, the fretted notes need to comply with the direction of movement across the strings. Note sequences are thus arranged, so that every note is played on a different string, in one continuous direction.

If you've ever marvelled at Yngwie Malmsteen, Jason Becker or Marty Friedman and thought that you'd never get to that stage in a million years … don’t give up! They aren’t robots, with a programmed ability to place every finger perfectly and pick cleanly at a million miles per hour from the beginning.

They're human, like us, and needed to learn guitar techniques the same way we do. One of the favourite techniques of neo-classical players like Yngwie, Friedman and Becker is sweep picking.

Here we break this technique down systematically to make it easier to learn.

What is Sweep Picking on Guitar?

Sweep picking is an advanced two-hand guitar technique, where three or more notes are played in quick succession, however not strummed together as with a chord. In guitar sweep picking:

• You will move up or down three or more strings at a time, sounding each string once.
  
• Arpeggios are the note pattern usually used
  
• The end note is usually accentuated above the other notes 
  
• You will use one of several techniques for making each note sound separately, rather than together. You might lift your finger off a note on the fret board as it is struck, or palm mute with your right hand, or mute with your left hand using a finger rolling technique.
  
• When you need to sound more than one note on a string, hammer ons or pull offs are often used in order to preserve the natural sweeping motion, rather than alternate or economy picking a small section 

Pick downwards in one direction smoothly.

Picking Hand Technique for Learn Sweep Picking 

• Think of the sweep as a controlled strum
  
• Make sure that your pick is slightly angled up when you are moving down the strings, and down when you are moving up the strings
  
• Don’t hold the pick too hard
  
• Maintain a steady rhythm for the sweep itself
  
• Angle your pick a little more towards 90 degrees from the body for the last note, to accentuate it slightly.

Finger Rolling on Guitar

Finger rolling is the easiest way to ensure that all the notes in a sweep sound clearly, but do not ring, while keeping up your speed. If you are moving down the bottom 3 strings, the finger rolling technique would consist of:

• Pushing the tip of your finger down on the G string
  
• Lifting it after the note is struck and pushing the middle of your finger down on the B string
  
• Lifting that after the note is struck and pushing the lower part of your finger down on the E string 

For those of you who have difficulty visualizing this, imagine your finger as a rocking chair and move your finger in a rocking chair motion

Sweep Picking and Arpeggios

Arpeggios need to be voiced in such a way, that the sweeping motion can be employed. That means there are only certain chord shapes that are favorable for this technique. Although voicings are limited in for sweep picking, the ease at which you can use the same fingering and sweep pattern elsewhere on the fretboard, makes it a very versatile technique to learn and use.

Rapid key changes are possible when using sweep picking. This is because you can use the same shape for a relatively large number of scale keys, allowing you to effortlessly go from one arpeggio to the next in a smooth, quick manner.

Because this technique is not just limited to arpeggios, there are instances when extra notes need to be played, which in theory, would need extra picking motions. Of course this is undesirable, because it interferes with the smooth, quick movements of sweeping.

Usually, these notes are played using hammer-ons and pull-offs. In fact, you can purposefully include these legato notes to further increase the complexity of arpeggios or scale passages, while still employing the basic economy of hand movements.

How to Stack Chords for Sweep Picking

As mentioned before, it is necessary to stack the notes in a chord correctly, so that your arpeggios and scales can be performed using sweep picking. The typical voicing that is used for arpeggios, in terms of the notes in the scale, are as follows:

• Tonic
• Mediant
• Dominant
• Tonic (1 octave higher than the first note)

The arpeggio is played in that order, ascending and descending, then the next one is played, or the entire sequence is repeated.

Sweep Guitar Practicing

Sweep picking can be a difficult technique to master. As with all new skills that you’re learning on the guitar, always practice first to get it right, and second to get it fast. Don't try to live up to Jason Becker's standard in your first week! If you teach yourself to sweep pick sloppily, for the sake of speed, it will be much more difficult to un-learn your bad habits.

Good songs for practising sweep picking:

• A Tout Le Monde, Megadeth
  
• Leper Messiah, Metallica
  
• Bloodlust of the Human Condition, Unearth
  
• Eugene's Trick Bag, Steve Vai
  
• Beast and the Harlot, Avenged Sevenfold

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