How to Play Quick Sweep Selection Arpeggios
Sweeping picking with speed and precision is based on mastering the rocking technique on the fret hand. By mastering this technique, you can play notes on adjacent strings, on the same fret, and with the same finger without them getting mixed up and sounding sloppy.
Having a great swinging technique means:
*Have a good knowledge of the mechanics of the technique to know how to practice it correctly.
*Avoid mistakes in guitar practice that make rolling more difficult than necessary.
*Know how to see when you are practicing something correctly so that sweeping picking at fast speeds becomes easy.
Poor finger rolling technique usually occurs for these reasons:
Sloppy Sweep Picking Cause #1: Playing with a bar instead of rotating your finger dynamically
You have to fret each note on the roll at the same time. This helps your sweep pick stay clean even when playing at high distortion and volume levels.
When you play multiple strings at once with one measure, the notes sound together. This makes the sweep selection sound very sloppy. Watch the video around 2:20 to hear what this sounds like and why it makes the sweep pick sound so bad.
How to fix this:
Step 1. Practice isolating the rocking motion while folding in/unfolding the knuckles of each finger of the fretting hand.
Step 2. Once you can successfully use the roll technique in isolation, work on using it within the context of different arpeggios. Don’t make the mistake of practicing too much in isolation; this takes away your ability to integrate the technique into your guitar playing (for when you need to play real music). Train in isolation, but over time, continue to integrate this movement into your playing.
Sloppy Sweep Picking Cause #2: String action is too low
The distance between the strings and the fingerboard (also known as the action) is a big factor in how difficult it is to use rocking effectively. When the strings are closer to the fingerboard, it’s harder to keep them from snapping as you turn. Every time you collapse your knuckles, the note you previously played tends to keep playing.
How to fix this:
Take the time to raise your action. This makes it easier to prevent notes from ringing as you roll.
Sloppy Sweep Pickup Cause #3: Can’t hear bugs at high speed
Your mind has to keep up with the notes you’re playing and the mistakes you’re making in real time in order to play accurately. Doing this makes guitar practice more effective and helps improve your sweep picking faster.
Training your mind to listen for errors while playing fast is made up of:
1. Listen to the mistakes you make at high speeds. It’s not enough to just know you’re not playing fair; you need to identify the specific mistakes you are making without having to play at a slower pace.
2. Actively train yourself to listen to music at high speed. This can be trained in the same way that you would train your hands to play fast. Create an arpeggio using some kind of music software and play it yourself at high speed. Repeat this same sample many times.
Using headphones, listen to each note in the arpeggio.
Change your focus through different notes in the arpeggio. This trains your brain to keep up with what you are playing.
Sloppy Sweep Collection Cause #4: Not Tracking/Measuring Progress
Many guitarists only think about playing as fast as possible. Very few think about other important aspects of their playing, such as:
*The speed at which they can play a particular element without error, with complete consistency, with precision, and with their hands out of sync.
*The skill gap between these things and your highest game speed.
If you play guitar and make a lot of mistakes, it doesn’t really matter if you can play fast. Master the swing pick and sweep technique by finding the top speed at which you can cleanly sweep and pick up and bringing it up to your top overall speed.