Learn How To Sweep Pick With Efficient Technique & Play Better Arpeggios Than Ever Before

Struggling with sweep picking?

Don't worry, many guitarists have a hard time with this technique too.

However, it's not because the technique itself is incredibly hard. It's actually easier than you think.

People struggle with it because they use inefficient technique that creates problems and causes sloppy playing.

Good news is, improving your sweep picking technique does not have to take long.

Sweep pick better than ever by using the advice in this video:

Click on the video to begin watching it.

Forward this video to your friends

See my other guitar playing videos, available to my YouTube subscribers - follow my channel by clicking the button below:

Here are a few more sweep picking tips to help you play arpeggios better:

Sweep Picking Tip #1: Practice Arpeggios With Distortion Most Of The Time. Here Is Why:

Contrary to popular belief, distortion doesn't mask mistakes. It exposes sloppy guitar playing. Which means: if your arpeggios are full of string noise and notes bleeding together – distortion makes this very obvious.

That also means: you can easily tell when your playing is becoming cleaner as you fix sloppy mistakes in your sweep picking.

Sweep Picking Tip #2: Mute Sloppy String Noise Using Both Hands. Here Is How:

Most people mute sloppy string noise in their arpeggios using their picking hand’s palm. This is not what I recommend.

My advice?

Use thumb muting. Thumb muting means: you rest your picking hand’s thumb on the thicker strings as you sweep pick. This makes it impossible for those strings to vibrate and create noise in your arpeggios.
Next, use your fretting hand’s index finger to mute the higher in pitch strings. All you do is lightly touch the thinner strings using the underside of the fretting hand index finger.

(Don’t press them down – just touch the strings very lightly.)

This gives you an additional layer of muting to prevent string noise during your sweep picking.

On a related note…

Avoid notes bleeding together in your arpeggios. Here is how to achieve this:

1. Relax each finger from its note when the next note starts ringing. Note: “relaxing” doesn't mean lifting the finger up in the air. It means releasing it from its note, so the next note can ring clearly.

2. Do not let notes to bleed together during finger rolls. Isolate finger rolling and practice the motion until the notes are clean.

Sloppy Sweep Picking At High Speeds

Now you know how to develop your sweep picking technique and play arpeggios fast & clean.

The next step to reaching your guitar playing goals is to refine your other skills. I'm talking about: your other guitar techniques, music theory knowledge, ear training, phrasing, fretboard visualization and creativity, so you can:

Finally feel like you are playing music instead of just playing guitar!

If you want, I can help you do just that in my Breakthrough Guitar Lessons.

These lessons are personalized and tailored specifically for you, your skill level, your musical interests, your guitar playing strengths & weaknesses and of course: your short & long-term musical goals.

Here is how they work:

You tell me about your guitar playing and what you want to achieve as a musician. (You do that by filling out a detailed evaluation form where I get to know your musical background.)

Note: the evaluation from may contain musical questions you don’t know how to answer. That’s ok. The from is not a test – it’s a way for me to see what you know or don't know, so I can create the best lesson strategy for you.

When I get your evaluation from, I read it (at least twice).

Then I go to work to create your lesson strategy and lesson materials.

All of this typically takes between 3-5 hours for me to do for you. (Please be patient with me on this part. I want to do as thorough of a job designing your lesson strategy as possible. The better your lesson strategy – the faster you improve. That’s why this process takes time.)

Then I email you when your first lesson is ready.

Your lesson materials consist of exercises, drills and etudes that develop the skills you need to reach your guitar playing goals.

Each lesson is a step towards reaching your musical goals.

In addition, as a guitar student of mine, you also have access to:

Weekly live video Office Hours. This is where you can ask me anything about guitar playing or music. I'm there to help you – live on video.
Weekly live video training classes. In these classes, I take the hardest guitar playing topics and break them down to make them easy to master. Plus, I get to see you play and answer your questions live on video.
We also do live guitar practice sessions for you, me and my other students. We all practice guitar together and work on things each of us may struggle to practice individually. This helps you to get stuff done and improve more quickly.
If you have questions – email me anytime - day or night. I answer your questions in detail and you always get a detailed reply from me directly.
You can send me recordings of your playing for feedback. In my feedback, I help you diagnose and remove bad habits from your playing and erase all obstacles slowing down your progress.

You also get access to our exclusive community on my students’ forum. There you can get support from my top guitar students – many of whom are now professional guitar teachers themselves.

Then you begin practicing. You don’t have to practice for hours per day – 30 minutes per day (4-5 times per week) is enough to see results.

All you have to do is follow the steps I lay out for you in your guitar lessons. And keep doing this not just for the 1st lesson, but in all the lessons that follow.

Look at the results my guitar students are achieving:

“Tom was my first guitar teacher ever. I started online guitar lessons a couple of years ago and it’s what I’ve been looking for. Someone who can really help me get what I want.”

Tom really puts it back on me to decide what I want and do what I need to do to get that. That’s what so many people need when they need help - they need to know how to help themselves.

There’s abundant resources. You can always get more information. You can always get more help, especially from other people, other students, members on the forum... Most of all, it’s an opportunity for me to help myself. That’s the goal.

When I pick up something that I haven’t played for a long time with my new technique... wow, it feels different. There are plenty of songs (I’ve always played in a cover band, so I know tons of songs). There are songs I haven’t played for 5, 10, 15, 20 years... and if I pulled them up and played them, they would still feel the same way they did back them. But now, if I pull up and play a song I haven’t played in forever – Oh my God, wow! My hands do this now.

Rob Hiemstra, Toronto, Canada

“You’re dealing with one of the best guitar teachers in the world, maybe the best and you can’t get that just anywhere in the world.”

I wanted to really focus much more on getting the technique down, with the integration Tom has of bringing in the other aspects such as theory, improvisation or songwriting so it all integrates and ties together. You get a comprehensive package so that you not only learn the technique, you’re really applying it in many different ways... in ways that are going to be much more useful, rather than your average internet lesson where the guy just explains something or shows you how to do it. Tom tells you how to do something and how to apply and use it in many different ways.

Tom is so goal focused, and I hadn’t even thought of that, it changed the way I thought of things. Tom makes you come up with musical goals and works towards fulfilling those goals. You have something to focus on, the lessons are based on meeting those goals. You’re getting better, you can see how you’re getting better and then you build new goals after that. You see the growth and development as opposed to just getting a little better at a certain technique. You’re actually developing.

Mike Larson, Milwaukee, USA

“When I first heard about Tom Hess, I saw that he was a teacher that was very dedicated and serious about it, and that drew me in immediately. That this is a guy that has a plan, has a goal and really if you’re serious about learning guitar, this guy is equally as serious in a way. So it resonated with me straight away.”

I started out just learning by myself and as many others I got stuck. I had a few issues I wanted to get by, but when I met Tom and talked with him and started lessons with him, he opened up a whole new world of possibilities of what guitar playing can be.

I feel very grateful that I found lessons from Tom since I then did what worked from the very beginning. Many guitarists I see that played way longer than I did, they have build up many bad habits. That from the very start, there was clear instruction of how to practice correctly. You build the ability for high speed and whatever you want from the very beginning and you don’t waste time doing inefficient things. So I’m very grateful that I did that, and now I really feel I am able to reach whatever level I want.

The reasons why I think I feel so motivated all the time is because I know that the thing I’m working on is relevant for me and it’s exactly the direct thing I need to get.

The forum just kicks ass. The people in the forum - it’s just like unconditional help all the time. They love to help out, and you also get very inspired by seeing someone just really getting speed really quick and then you say if he can do it, I can do it. It works on the mental side of being a guitarist and that of course that’s the most important thing. Just being around other musicians like that, is just you learn so much faster, is so much less frustration when you can see that all the people are having the same issues that you do, not anything special or anything. It’s just part of learning process, so it kicks ass.

Magnus Gautestad, Norway

“I started lessons when I was a young kid. I was in school. I had a casual teacher, but he only taught us chords, like basic stuff if you want to learn like 3 chord songs. But I wanted more than that, so I went to a local guitar teacher. But he also gave me the same thing. But after like 5 or 6 years of lessons, like I found myself, like if I heard a backing track or something, I couldn’t play with someone. I mean I didn’t feel like a musician, I feel like someone who can just move his fingers from like fret 1 to fret whatever. But with Tom, he’s giving me the tools to become what I want to become, become the musician I want to become. And this is exactly what I want.”

Tom Hess was basically the only guy on the internet with the credentials and the reviews, and basically everyone recommended him. He even had his own students webpage. All his students were like established guitar teachers and professional musicians and they had their own sites and I contacted like 7 of them, and they all recommended Tom Hess, and that’s why I joined him.

I like taking lessons with Tom because he gives me what I want. It’s not like something general for everyone. Like if you want to learn blues, he gives you lessons for blues, but I want to become a metal player and also a neoclassical player, so he’s giving me exactly what I need and what I want. And if I have a problem I just post a thread on the amazing forum, and I get like answers, not just short answers, but really detailed answers. I feel like I am taken care of, I don’t have to worry about anything. If I just follow everything word for word what Tom gives me in all of the lessons, that’s if I have time, because they’re so big, I mean every lesson, people think it’s overpriced, but each lesson, if you want to master it, take everything out of it, is going to take you like 4 weeks of 2 hours of work every day.

Mohamed Karim Koleilat, Beirut, Lebanon

You can begin achieving the same results in your playing anytime you want. To begin, click the “start now” button on the banner below to learn more.