How To Sweep Pick Fast And Clean Using Cool Arpeggio Guitar Licks
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If you’d like to learn to sweep pick but find this lead guitar technique rather intimidating...
Or if you’ve hit a plateau when trying to play arpeggio guitar licks fast and clean...
Or even if you already have some good speed...
And simply want to connect the guitar arpeggio licks you know more smoothly and fluently...
Then this sweep picking article will help you improve your guitar technique and play arpeggio guitar licks much faster and cleaner.
EMAIL TO GET ACCESS
By submitting your info, you agree to send it to Tom Hess Music Corporation who will process and use it according to their privacy policy.
As you’ll see...
Sweep picking isn’t as hard of a lead guitar technique as many guitarists (who struggle to play guitar fast) believe.
All it takes is some attention to detail and consistent practicing (based on the simple guitar technique tips you’re about to learn)...
Follow them...
... and it won’t be long before you’re playing arpeggio guitar licks that impress your friends and everyone else who hears you play.
Ready to start?
Then watch this video on how to sweep pick fast and clean using 3-string arpeggio guitar licks:
Now that you know the basics of how to play guitar fast and clean sweep picking arpeggio guitar licks, let’s go deeper:
Here are 5 more advanced ways to play guitar fast using sweep picking
Tip #1 For How To Play Guitar Fast With Sweep Picking Arpeggio Guitar Licks: Master Finger Rolling
What is finger rolling and how does this fit into lead guitar playing?
Finger rolling is a fretting motion (often used in sweep picking) that involves playing several notes on the same fret across several strings, using the same finger.
And that motion (finger rolling) has one goal:
To keep the notes sounding separate (especially when you are playing lead guitar with distortion) and help you avoid bleeding (notes ringing together).
When you do finger rolling the right way, it allows you to achieve crazy sweep picking speed.
And it can become the easiest guitar technique to shred with.
(Fun fact: finger rolling is the technique I used to set an ‘unofficial’ (and totally meaningless) lead guitar speed record I set when I was teaching guitar offline.
Myself and several guitar teaching friends of mine (who are all virtuoso shredders) tried to find out who was the fastest among us. Each of us decided to use our fastest guitar technique of choice.
And I won that contest, because my guitar technique of choice happened to finger rolling (and there is nothing faster than playing 3-string sweep picking arpeggio guitar licks using it.)
So, if it’s important for you to play guitar fast, make time for practicing finger rolling.
That said, when you do finger rolling wrong...
It can become one of the big causes of sloppy string noise in your arpeggio guitar licks.
So, how do you do finger rolling the right way when sweep picking?
This sweep picking video shows it in detail:
A few notes about lead guitar finger rolling:
1. Avoid the ‘opposite’ problem of notes bleeding together, which is not letting the notes of your sweep picking licks ring out their full length. You need to stop hearing the note you were playing at the exact moment the ‘next’ note starts ringing... NOT before.
2. If you want to play guitar fast (especially with sweep picking), practice your guitar licks using distortion.
Why? Distortion makes it much easier to tell when your finger rolling is sloppy (i.e. when the notes of your lead guitar arpeggio licks are ringing together).
And since lead guitar bleeding sounds more obvious when you use distortion, that allows you to fix it faster.
Question: “But Tom Hess, I heard that distortion helps to mask mistakes when playing lead guitar and that I should practice sweep picking arpeggio guitar licks with a clean tone. Isn’t that true?”
Answer: No. There are different kinds of mistakes when you play lead guitar. Distortion actually makes most of them ‘easier’ to hear, because it makes them louder. (For example: you can hear notes bleeding together WAY easier using distortion.)
So, avoid practicing lead guitar finger rolling with a clean tone.
3. Resist calling (or thinking of) finger rolling as “barring”. It’s not “barring”.
You’ll have a much harder time mastering this technique if you think of it as having anything to do with ‘barring’ notes or playing barre chords. Barring means: fretting several notes together at the same time.
(That is precisely what ‘creates’ the bleeding sound you want to avoid in your lead guitar playing.)
Finger rolling is about separating the notes in your lead guitar licks. So, call it by its proper name.
Tip #2 For How To Play Guitar Fast With Sweep Picking Arpeggio Guitar Licks: Combine Sweep Picking With Tremolo Picking
Playing arpeggio guitar licks with tremolo picking is a great way to achieve 2 very cool lead guitar technique goals at the same time:
- clean up your arpeggio guitar licks, so you can play guitar fast ‘and’ clean with sweep picking.
(When you combine tremolo picking with sweep picking, it becomes easy to tell when your hands are in sync or when they are not, as you play your arpeggio guitar licks.)
- come up with truly awesome lead guitar licks (that sound far more aggressive than regular sweep picking arpeggio guitar licks).
How exactly do you do it?
Simply sweep up to each of the notes in your lead guitar arpeggios and stop on that note using tremolo picking.
Watch this video to see what that sounds like and how to practice it:
Question: “Tom Hess, how do I practice with a metronome when combining tremolo picking with sweep picking?”
Answer: Simply - don’t. This lead guitar technique variation (of combining tremolo picking sweep picking arpeggio guitar licks) is to be done by feel.
You should (of course) use a metronome when practicing your regular lead guitar arpeggios (in 16th notes or triplets), since those lead guitar licks are much easier to play in time with the click.
Doing that will develop your timing for playing lead guitar in general (and help you play guitar fast with sweep picking).
Question: “Tom Hess, how do I count the number of tremolo pick strokes practicing lead guitar arpeggios in this way?”
Answer: Again - don’t. go by feel. The exact number is less important than stopping on each note of your arpeggio guitar licks cleanly.
Tip #3 For How To Play Guitar Fast With Sweep Picking Arpeggio Guitar Licks: Use Breaks In The Pattern To Make Arpeggio Guitar Licks Easier To Play Fast
Most lead guitar players play arpeggio guitar licks in the same predictable pattern (all the way up from the thickest string to the thinnest string and all the way down – back to the thickest string).
Problem is: even if you learn to play guitar fast this way, it makes your arpeggio guitar licks sound predictable and boring.
Here are 2 ways to break out of this and help your lead guitar sweep picking licks sound cooler (so you have an easier time learning to play guitar fast):
1. Use the ‘double up’ lead guitar technique to create a contour shift in your arpeggio guitar licks. One way to do this is to play the highest 2 notes of the arpeggio 2 times (breaking the listener’s expectation).
Here is what this lead guitar technique looks and sounds like:
2. Separate your arpeggio lead guitar lick repetitions by silence. Literally, just pause after playing each lead guitar arpeggio once.
Why do this?
Simple answer: this makes it easier to play guitar fast (because the pause gives your hand and brain a bit of a break and enables you to go on playing fast arpeggio guitar licks for longer).
Plus: the pause between arpeggios makes your sweep picking sound meaner and more aggressive.
Watch this video to see this lead guitar technique in action:
Tip #4 For How To Play Guitar Fast With Sweep Picking Arpeggio Guitar Licks: Combine 3 And 5-String Arpeggios
Arpeggio guitar licks sound most impressive when you combine different sweep picking shapes.
And the most pro way to do it is to take the 3-string sweep picking patterns you can already play guitar fast with and extend them to into 5-string lead guitar arpeggio patterns.
Watch this video to see how to practice 5-string lead guitar sweep picking arpeggios the right way:
That said, as you do this, watch out for common sweep picking mistakes that make it virtually impossible to play guitar fast with arpeggio guitar licks.
Lead Guitar Technique Mistake #1: Playing The Hammer Ons (And Pull Offs) Faster Than (And Out Of Time With) The Other Notes In Your Arpeggio Guitar Licks.
This makes your arpeggio guitar licks very hard to play fast, because you end up with a lead guitar lick that has different note values (neither of which are in time).
This video shows what this lead guitar problem sounds like and how to avoid it, so you can play guitar fast with greater ease:
Lead Guitar Technique Mistake #2: Letting Your Picking Hand Stop Between Strings As You Are Sweep Picking.
This is the #1 mistake that makes it impossible to play guitar fast with sweep picking.
Slowing down your picking hand motions (or stopping the pick between strings) leads to a loss of momentum in your picking hand.
What I tell my guitar students to do instead is to visualize themselves playing baseball and seeing 3-5 balls being thrown in their direction. The “balls” in this example are your guitar strings.
And your baseball bat is your picking hand.
Your job is to push through the strings in one motion (like swinging a bat without stopping) and pull the hand through all the strings when descending.
This lead guitar video shows you how to use this tip to play guitar fast:
Tip #5 For How To Play Guitar Fast With Sweep Picking Arpeggio Guitar Licks: Control Sloppy String Noise Using Thumb Muting
If you want to not only ‘play guitar fast’ but also make your fast playing sound clean and articulate...
You’d better know how to control string noise in your arpeggio guitar licks.
And the best way to do that?
Use picking hand thumb muting.
Just like it sounds: rest your picking hand’s thumb on the lower (thicker) strings as you are sweep picking and it will slide up and down – keeping your arpeggio guitar licks sounding clean as you play guitar fast.
And the trick to doing thumb muting the right way lies in holding your guitar pick in a special way.
A way that (in my experience) is far superior to the traditional way of resting it on the side of the index finger like most guitar players.
What is that way?
I explain it in this lead guitar technique video:
Once you get used to holding the guitar pick the way I show in the video above, it becomes much easier to play guitar fast with sweep picking.
Now that you know how to sweep pick and play guitar faster, the next step is to make your lead guitar technique more reliable and consistent, so you can play guitar fast AND have it sound clean and accurate – even on your worst days. I show you how in my free eGuide on playing guitar consistently without mistakes. Download it today and discover the guitar playing secrets most guitarists will never know.
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