Sweep Help Please

Technique Critique
#21

Hard to tell the picking pattern from that, but it seems right. Do you have access to the Teemu interview?
This section shows perfectly the difference

VS

I’ve also been messing with doing reverse Yngwie stuff (using DSX on the same pattern but upside-down, Jason becker has them in the Altitudes solo and in Perpetual burn, probably a bunch of other places).

Then also seeing what happens if I maintain DSX and push through the normal 3 string patterns with my thumb maintaining DSX against the grain of the strings. I was curious if maybe it could result in a smoother tracking with less anchoring because it would work against gravity on the way down and be “with the grain” on the way up. I can try and record an example of messing with that, no idea if it’ll pan out to anything useful though.

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#22

I can post it, It’s more the tonal nuance and attributes of the sweep itself that was at question with the OP. I usually use a light mute.

#23

I sometimes try to do some things using DSX, but I have never thought to try it on sweeping. You have sparked a light bulb moment for me! Thanks for saying this, I wouldve never thought to try this ever.

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#24

The only thing I could say is I use the Joe Stump Arpeggio book for this area, it is the only resource I have on sweep picking. I think its decent, and has helped. But the way the book is structured is it steps up adding strings starting with 2 string then 3 string,4, 5, 6. I think this is a decent way to approach it, don’t get too bogged down, at least get somewhat proficient before adding another string. At least somewhat master 2, then 3, then 4, and especially 5 before moving onto 6. And stick to the easier shaped arpeggios that dont have any barring at first so to let your hands sync better to allow more consciously awared mind for your picking hand.

#25

Sweeping is all about the fretting hand, if you feed your picking hand, even, well fretted, notes, you can just drag the picking hand across with no thought.

My advice to myself and anyone with sweeping is left hand control. It should be your main focus.
It’s not in your picking hand. It’s all in the frets, thats where the coordination is. The picking hand is literary just following the fretting. It sounds too basic, but that is the main issue with sweeps.

#26

You still have to develop speed, finesse and coordination. That is harder to do if you dont build up some foundation to engrain the correct sweeping motion at the speed you desire with easier fretted fingering sweeps, that utilize all the fingers, even the shapes that use the middle finger twice can be a sync hiccup speed bump as will the shapes that include barring. Basically at least building up confidence. But I can agree to an extent, really depends on the skill level of the player. And lets not scare him by adding more notes per string, the ones with the pull off or hammer on notes during the middle of the shape making it even more difficult. :smiley: :worried: :smile:

#27

Good to start with the correct idea though. The correct sweeping motion from my experience is all in the fretting, for example, the simpler your fretting the faster you can go (I think thats what you’re saying), the staircase pattern up n down is one of the simplest. I’m not sure how to show that without recording a video, but anyone with experience should understand, the 4 note pattern going across the strings / and back down \ very easy and the perfect example of the fretting hand doing all the work. You could drag your face across the picking area and get a sweep as long as your fretting is good.

#28

I should have been just a bit more specific, and give an example. The main shape I mean is the 5 string major shape, so I left out the fact that it does use the index finger twice, but this specific instance the index finger should be the most dexterous out of all the fingers.

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#29

I find the pull off very akward. I did it on the 12th fret. Thats really hard at the end of the neck. I feel like it is even more in the fretting tho, the lower notes have got a lot more tension

#30

Do you do the 3 string arpeggio patterns? These should come before the 5 string, so you can develop that pull off. I don’t change slant on the upstroke portion. I leave the pick the exact same placement and slant, but I sorta use my index finger to guide my way back up without changing position of anything while naturally let the thumb joint tip bend.

#31

Sorry I’m late. I was practicing. :joy::joy::joy:

Getting the hang of it now.

I will go through the replies shortly.

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#32

Really nice and articulate, it takes time for it to sink into effortless maneuvers. I find the more small etudes, and lick links I can come up with to just fiddle with helps to get them into effortless maneuver territory. This is the zone you need to get them into to really speed them up. Kinda just basically forces you to play them daily without thinking of it like a chore, but at the same time having fun grinding. This video compared to the first is light years better. You might even could back the tempo down just maybe 5-10bpm and work in this zone to burn in the mechanics to feel the relaxation, and still maintain rhythmical control and finesse. I find if I practice when I wake up the best for ingraining new motions into my hands.

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#33

Thanks man! I’m really happy with my progress. It’s a totally different way of playing, so getting that motion to sound fluid is super difficult.
I was pushing the speed on that video. I like 75bpm, that was 80bpm at the end of a practice session, just seeing if I can creep it up a notch, haha.

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#34

Solid progress! Definitely gaining more control now :love_you_gesture:

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#35

I just did the basic sweep you posted, tho not great on that pulloff. Thats middle finger, I’d do same as you if I used the index. I wanted to show the point about if you feed proper fretted notes you can fly across it.

@EmptyEstus something I do when practicing sweeps is take my thumb off the neck, that makes you have to be more correct with your fretting. When you play normally can use thumb ofcourse. Might help if you’ve never tried it?

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#36

I would largely agree with this. It goes further than just building dexterity with that hand, not only does it have to be dexterous, but it also has to do so in a way that keeps things quiet.

I wouldn’t say picking hand speed is really the most important to build first though, same with economy picking. Sweeping is already a pretty fast technique on its own, one which the picking hand will almost always surely outpace the fretting hand initially for most people. Rhythmic accuracy and clarity is much more important for sweeping, so in my opinion it is a technique that is much better to build up from a comfortable starting point, than to try and blaze away at from the get go. I do think going to smaller sweeps across all string groupings and rhythmic patterns is a good place to start, and not just spending time on a few easy patterns.

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#37

To hone in on that more - rhythmic evenness comes from a combination of fretting hand tracking across all the strings perfectly evenly and perfect hand synchronization.

Jason Richardson, again my go-to for absurdly even sweeping, suggests essentially crosspicking all your arpeggio shapes for several months until you can do so at 120 BPM 16th notes

I messed with that exercise for a while, including his particular fretting patterns which totally avoid any barring (not necessary really but I think they can show you some things about fretting you might not realize are as efficient as they are and they certainly helped me reflect on new ways to finger patterns I had never thought of before).

What I found was if you stick to only palm “anchoring” (he actually uses his palm more for a combination of lightly anchoring and string tracking when sweeping, so kinda plant your palm just firmly enough to feel stable but light enough to move along the bridge) like him and perform these exercises it definitely requires a lot of awareness of string tracking, and helps reinforce that even tempo a lot in ways that standard sweep exercises don’t.

Another thing is thumb/index finger engagement on the high 3 strings both to complete larger arpeggios and performing 3 string sweeps - if you start to think of your thumb as pushing through at the end and index as pulling up like a writing/drawing motion when starting to descend you get more control. Once you hit the B string with the thumb motion, roll your forearm into a pronated position to hit the G and D strings so the whole motion is engaging:

  1. your elbow and shoulder

  2. your thumb and index finger

  3. your forearm

That’s also only one way to do it - Jason Becker actually does something totally different
He anchors his palm at the top of the bridge and uses more wrist motion, he also anchors his pinky and ring fingers, but he still engages with the thumb/index thing (watch him play Serrana super closely, his elbow never moves, and on the 3 string patterns he mostly moves his thumb and index finger and flicks his wrist - you can clearly see he pushes down with his thumb through the G B E strings and flicks his wrist for an upstroke escape on B on the 3 string patterns following how Yngwie does them, I’m not sure if Richardson does this, since he doesn’t do a pull-off at all I think he changes pickslant with his thumb on the E string and upstrokes E B and G then downstrokes on the B string coming back).

#38

I’m not sure I would completely agree with Jason Richardson’s strategy. I don’t think it really is completely necessary to practice cross picking until you reach X tempo for this. At the end of the day you are training two different techniques and may risk training a completely different motion doing this. Also I wouldn’t avoid the bar shapes. It is a pretty useful skill to develop

#39

Yeah I’m not sure it’s the most efficient way to develop evenness, it helped me out, but to your point it’s definitely much more important to figure out a compound movement that is comfortable and affords as much control as possible, especially descending, and that means something that works with however you decide to anchor. I think the finger involvement is usually part of that, maybe not necessarily.

As for the bar shapes, I treat the two almost as different techniques. I try to only use barring when either the speed is too fast for me to fret everything or if it’s such a demanding section that doing so would fatigue my hand. I agree that barring is important, and I think it’s some quirk of Jason Richardson’s that he couldn’t do so cleanly, maybe he lacks backwards flexibility in his DIP/fingertip joint or something that makes it more difficult.

One other point as far as fretting hand efficiency though, which I did get from JR is using efficient fingerings, which I was not doing -

for example 1) Diminished 3 string sweeps, I kept using pinky twice in the movement and getting tired - he uses ring finger on the G string - felt awkward at first but is now way more comfortable:

Screen Shot 2022-05-21 at 10.01.37 AM

For example 2), 5 string, 2nd inversion minor shape

Screen Shot 2022-05-21 at 9.52.10 AM

I used to play it with fingering 4-1-2-3-2-4-1 using my ring finger and I actually got it pretty fast and even but it caused way more fatigue. It’s probably universally better to opt to use index and middle whenever possible for any shape even if it requires a small jump or wrist adjustment, for efficiency sake when sweeping. But that could be a weird quirk of my playing. I remember reading that it’s super hard to alternated middle and ring and ring and pinky and I definitely took it as a challenge as a teenager because I’m stubborn.

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#40

It’s likely because somewhere down the line, you taught your self that anytime you have a two fret stretch, the index and pinky are the fingers for that, and some of it can be fretting hand placement as well. The added benefit of using the ring finger on the lower string, especially if you hold the neck anything like me, is that it gives you more muting ability with the fretting hand as well.

I always play that shape doubled up on the index, just like the tab shows. It was always more intuitive that way for me, and again put my fingers in a more optimum position to mute. Sweeping can be a noisy technique.