Want to know the technique so many people ask me about?
Sweep picking.
Sweep picking seems to be a mystery to so many aspiring lead guitarists.
A mystery in the sense they have no idea how some players do it so well, and how they can do it well, too.
If you’ve got no idea how to improve your sweep picking, I’m going to share a few tips to help you out.
But before I do, here’s the best tip I can give you.
Practice. Lots of it.
Sweep picking is a challenging technique, it’s not something that’s going to happen overnight.
If you really want to improve your sweep picking, it’s a good idea to accept this and prepare to work at it over a long period of time.
The rate in which you improve depends entirely on the amount of (quality) practice you put in.
That being said, here are a few thing that can help you improve your sweep picking.
Slow It Down
The reason why most peoples sweep picking sounds like trash is because they attempt to do it too fast. The sweeping motion from your fretting hand already makes sweep picking a naturally fast technique, because of this – your focus should be more on control.
Practice your sweep picking much slower than you usually do focusing on control. Try sweep picking your arpeggios with quarter notes at slow to medium tempos. Before too long – you’ll start to see the benefits.
Make Sure You’re Sweeping, Not Picking
When executing your sweeps, you must make sure you’re sweeping and not picking. By sweeping I mean your pick moves through the string and straight onward to the next one. It doesn’t move through the string, up and out, then on to the next one.
Be Mindful of Synchronisation
The hardest thing about sweep picking is properly synchronising the fretting and picking hands. What makes this so hard is the picking hand has less to do so it’s easy to play too fast, and the fretting hand has more to do so it’s easy for it to drag behind.