Eric Johnson sweep between 2 strings

Hi all,

I have been practicing a bit of DWPS and I have hit a wall with Eric Johnson type of sweeps between 2 strings.

I can play 2 or 4 note per string DWPS licks up to 160-180BPM in 16 notes cleanly now. When it comes to those mini sweeps as in Eric Johnson licks such as ‘classic fives’ my picking falls very quickly. I can only do those at 120BPM and not always clean.

Does anyone know of a good exercise to isolate those mini sweeps and work on those in separation? Alternate picking in DWPS is not a problem here but those mini sweeps I just cant get them at all.

Any help would be great!

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Hi! I think “exercise” is the wrong way to think about issues like this. In general, if something isn’t working, that means the motion you’re making might not be working. What is the motion you are making currently? And what about it isn’t working? I think those are more helpful questions to ask.

In this case I actually think this is a pretty sophisticated question, and one we haven’t properly addressed yet. In other words, what motion is used for a sweep embedded in an alternate picking line?

Well in Cascade, there’s this example:

https://troygrady.com/seminars/cascade/clips/mixolydian-medley/

Unfortunately when we filmed this we didn’t get a good shot of the forearm. But I played the same thing a couple years later for the Pickslanting Primer and this has a much clearer shot of what’s going on:

https://troygrady.com/primer/getting-started/clips/pickslanting-primer-intro-lick/

It looks like the alternate picked notes are wrist + forearm, and the sweeps looks like mostly just wrist by itself. You can also see a fair amount of rest stroke during the sweep. In other words, the picking hand actually stops moving when the pick hits the next string, waits for the fretting hand to catch up, then starts picking again. I can tell you I am not aware of any of this when I’m playing, and even when I’m looking down at my hand while playing. It’s just a thing we can see in slow motion.

To make matters more confusing, there are probably other ways this can be done. There are players out there like Yngwie who appear to use finger motion for sweeping and less or no finger motion when alternate picking on a single string.

Lots of options here, no single “correct” way. I’d choose whichever one is most similar to what you do currently. If you want to work on rest stroke type sweeping, take any phrase with sweeping in it and see if you can get the stop and start type motion of the hand happening. If you can get that working by itself, then try introducing some single-string alternate picking into the phrase to see if you can get them both working together.

Edit: Here’s a Talking the Code clip that might be helpful also:

https://troygrady.com/channels/talking-the-code/combining-alternate-picking-and-sweeping/

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Well Troy probably is the one to listen to here and like he says, we don’t really know what the actual problem is for you. But I can share my personal experience of working on mini sweeps.

One thing that really made the sweeps work better for me was to use a steep DWPS angle to the string, as well as som edge. This made the pick glide a bit on the string I’m sweeping into before picking through it. This gives me some kind of control over how hard to push to get the lick to be rhythmically even. So in my case the pick doesn’t stop on the string like the way Troy describes, but instead always have some movement to it. There is of course not only one correct way to do this.

As for exercises, the Yngwie-style three note arpeggio is i good one. For example one note on the B-string (maybe 12th fret) and to notes on the E-string (maybe 10th and 14th) and repeat continuously.

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Guys, thank you so much for your replies.

They way I was trying to do this was by doing a standard DWPS on first note followed by restroke on string below and then ‘push’ the pick through the next string with what feels like standard pickstroke.

After reading Troys reply it clicked that problem must be with my mechanics. I noticed that anything can be played up to 120BMP with 16 notes with bad/wrong mechanics. 120 is a threshold for me. If mechanics is wrong anything above 120 will not work. That used to be the case with alternate picking for me. Once I got mechanics right I improved almost overnight.

Please tell me If I understand 2 string sweep correctly (one of the possible options)

  1. Play first downstroke with standard alternate mechanics (as usual)
  2. Stop pick on string below (restroke)
  3. Play another stroke using slightly different mechanics - fingers for example

This above sounds most logical to me. When thinking about it it seems rather impossible to follow alternate picking down stroke with another one with exactly the same mechanics. There is simply no momentum for that in the picking hand, therefore a different picking motion/mechanics should be used.

When watching videos of guys that can do it well I notice a semi circular movement on the picking hand on second downstroke. That suggest a different mechanics to second stroke. Fingers?

Also idea of perfectly timed one downstroke travelling over 2 strings with 2 separate perfectly timed notes seems rather impossible.

I hope this makes sense, Please correct me if I am on a wrong track and thanks again for time taken to reply. I will post a vid later today for comments.

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just watched the way Tory does it and there is a very obvious rest stroke but no movement in the fingers at all.

There are a lot of ways to do this but for me I don’t change mechanics on the second (swept) note. The pick sliding on the string is what give the possibility of timing it right for me. Different guitars with different string gauges acquire different amount of “push” on the swept string. After a while you get the feel for the guitar in question and adapt. Almost like the way you have to adapt to string bending when changing to a new guitar.

You’ve hit upon the fact that these situations are often complicated, and that there are sometimes different movements involved, even in a single phrase. That’s the most important concept, so good work there. I would simply caution against thinking of some movements as “standard” and others as “not standard”. They are just movements. You’ve got elbow, forearm, wrist, fingers, lots of joints you can use. There isn’t one that is more “standard” than the other.

Note that when I do this, step 3 isn’t really the “different mechanics” step. The combination of wrist and forearm is very common, and it always works more or less the same way. The upper half of the pickstroke has more arm, the lower half has more wrist. With some kind of blend between them. That’s what you’re seeing in my approach.

It is roughly the same approach you are seeing in this broadcast, and in the YouTube clip we pulled from it:

https://troygrady.com/channels/talking-the-code/crosspicking-with-the-wrist-and-forearm/

In general, I’d try not to try and compartmentalize these motions into “robot”-like steps. Remember, I’m not even aware I’m doing this, so I didn’t learn this way. Instead, try to work through them at a moderate or faster speed, making little changes, and see what feels smoothest. That’s how you find your most natural result. The fact that you have knowledge about which joints operate at which times, allows you to be more intelligent about this, but I would still use the “controlled intuitive” approach if you can, because I think it works faster.

I don’t want to get off topic, but I would be interested to know exactly what you are talking about in terms of mecahnics(DWPS, wrist, forearm etc)? The more specific the better, if you don’t mind. I’m having the same problem.

If you are asking about alternate picking in DWPS I do not actually know what I am using, but they way I found mechanics that works for me was by practicing chunks at faster tempos till I found what worked for me. It really was a trial and error, but I found that faster tempo (over 130BPM) was crucial to finding right technique. There really was little point practicing slower. (think walking vs running)

That is why I asked the question about those mini sweeps. I guess I need to find a way to isolate sweep and practice them at speeds 130+ in 16notes and feel what may work for me.

I will report back with results and thanks again guys for very helpful replies.

all right sweep pickers - my struggle documented on video below. Please let me know if I am making obvious mistakes here. This one is around 130 and 140 BPM in 16. Eric J - Fives lick descending. Ascending seems a bit harder.

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Nice playing! Honestly I’m not seeing the problem here. This sounds fine, looks fine. What’s the trouble exactly?

I wouldn’t dream of critiquing - but i will comment that i’m amazed to see such great pick control with so much of the pick showing - away from your fingers. I wonder if that’s commonplace for some of the players around here? Would be interested in knowing.

Also - could you point me to that EJ exercise here? I’d like to play around with it

i should have posted bad examples. I can only get it cleanish 50% of the time at those speeds. Also there is a distinct feeling of too much resistance or rather unequal resistance between first and second part of the sweep.

Great to hear that it looks ok. I was worried something was mechanically wrong.

I will stay at it for some time and report back with progress.

If my technique looks ok is it then just a matter of practice and trying to get faster tempos?

As a variation in your practice, I also found it useful to work on DDU + pulloff patterns, e.g. applied to a 2-string Em arpeggio (or a classic box pentatonic lick) you would play:

E---3-7p3-----
B-5-----------
  D D U 

The pulloff gives some extra time to the right hand to “rest” and readjust itself before the sweep.

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I never had Eric anywhere near Marty style- and technique-wise but atm the exact same lick is being discussed in the “Tornado of souls diminished run” thread.

Depends what’s going wrong at those tempos! Can you not move your hands fast enough, or is it just that you feel something isn’t right at faster speeds?

Post a clip of what it looks like when things aren’t working and we’ll take a look. Don’t use a metronome. Just go fast enough, by feel, until the problem occurs.

Also, if you fee like you are digging into the strings too much, I would try a fingers extended grip, where the other fingers lightly rest on the body. The presence of the fingers naturally prevents you from digging in too far because they are in the way.

Amazing playing! I wish I could play like that.