Sweep Picking Arpeggio Practice Tips For Tough Arpeggios
by Tom Hess
Feel like you’ve been struggling with the same sweep picking licks for ages without making progress?
Using multiple practice methods is an excellent way to identify the mistakes that cause break downs in your playing.
You're about to learn 3 powerful tips to help you quickly find these mistakes to improve your sweep picking arpeggios in no time!
Apply these tips into your practice right away:
Sweep Picking Practice Tip #1: Turn Your Picking Technique Up To 11
Ever try playing one of your favorite guitar licks at a faster speed than normal just to see how it sounds?
What you might notice when you do this for a bit is how it makes playing the original (slower) lick easier by comparison.
Using this same concept with sweep picking is a great way to practice in an alternative way that makes your picking rock-solid.
How can you practice this concept with sweep picking?
Here are a few ideas:
- Practice arpeggios at a slower speed by alternate picking them (instead of sweep picking).
- Target individual notes within a given arpeggio by emphasizing them using tremolo picking.
- Play an arpeggio 10-20 beats per minute faster than you usually would for several minutes, then play it at the original tempo.
Don't worry too much about making a lot of mistakes at the faster speed. Use this as a way to reveal inconsistencies in your playing while increasing your baseline top speed over time.
Sweep Picking Practice Tip #2: Make It Easier On Yourself
Overwhelming yourself with too much new information is a recipe for disaster.
Guitarists do this when they try to learn sweep picking by quickly diving head first into large or exotic arpeggio patterns.
Try this instead:
Make it easier on yourself by breaking larger sweep picking patterns into small sections of 2-3 notes. Then use quick bursts of speed to play through them as shown in this video:
Sweep Picking Practice Tip #3: Pick A Lot Harder!
Picking with a weak pick attack allows your mistakes to go unnoticed.
Picking with more power requires that you play with perfect sync in both hands to get the result you want. It also reveals where your arpeggios break down.
This is good because:
Having perfect synchronization is critical for playing fast and clean arpeggios. Learning where your guitar technique breaks down helps you practice the right things to get better faster.
Still want to learn more ways to master sweep picking technique and play killer arpeggios?
Learn a powerful and overlooked arpeggio practice approach by watching this sweep picking tutorial video.
About Tom Hess: Tom Hess is a guitar teacher, music career mentor and guitar teacher trainer. He teaches rock guitar lessons online to students from all over the world and conducts instructional live guitar training events attended by musicians from over 50 countries.
