How To Sweep Pick Fast Using Uncommon Practice Routines That Get Amazing Results
If your regular sweep picking practice consists only of repeating an arpeggio over and over to a metronome, make sure to read this…
You improve your sweep picking fast by using a variety of practice techniques rather than just practicing with a conventional approach. The best sweep picking practice routines help you dissect problems within specific areas of your playing, so you fix them quickly.
Sweep pick fast and clean by adding these uncommon practice routines into your schedule:
Sweep Picking Practice Idea #1. Nail Down Inconsistencies In Your Arpeggios Using Rubato
Playing sweep picking arpeggios at speeds you aren’t used to helps you fix mistakes you didn’t know you were making. Do this creatively by practicing an arpeggio using rubato (gradually increasing or decreasing the speed at which you play notes).
This helps you find weak points in your playing fast, to make your sweep picking much cleaner.
For example:
Choose any guitar arpeggio you want to improve.
Slowly play through the arpeggio.
Begin speeding up slowly and watch for where your playing breaks down.
After finding your mistakes, isolate these areas from the
rest of the arpeggio.
After doing this, go back and repeat the process until the arpeggio becomes clean at any speed.
Sweep Picking Practice Idea #2. Master Arpeggio Patterns Faster In Your Fretting Hand By Isolating The Pattern
Chances are, you always play sweep picking arpeggios using both hands.
Here’s a trick: Focusing only on one hand at a time isolates the movements in it, so you are able to laser-focus to perfect your technique in that hand.
Put your picking hand over strings behind fretting hand to dampen them, then finger the arpeggio and see how perfectly you can play it without picking.
This reveals flaws in your fretting hand.
Use this practice approach for 5 minutes (by itself), then move onto the next idea.
Sweep Picking Practice Idea #3. Make Your Picking Tight For Cleaner Arpeggios By Laser-Focusing On Your Picking Hand
Now, focus on perfecting your picking hand technique in isolation. This means removing the notes in the fretting hand entirely.
Here’s what to do:
Choose an arpeggio to play.
Dampen the strings using your fretting hand to where no frets are fretted, but the strings are touched lightly by your fingers.
Play the arpeggio pattern using ONLY your picking hand to pick the strings (do not fret any of the notes in the fretting hand). This isolates picking hand to help you find flaws in your pick attack. Imagine the actual notes in your head while doing this.
Look out for moments when you struggle to move the pick at a consistent rate of speed. The better you get at isolating your picking hand, the better you should become at maintaining consistent picking momentum.
Bonus Idea: Apply the advice in this video to clean up your arpeggios quickly.
Notice the flaws pointed out in this video, such as notes bleeding together. How does the teacher solve this problem?
Practice using his approach and add it together with the other ideas in this article to get big results in no time!
Learn how to become a super-fast guitar player while cutting your practice time in half using this resource on how to double your guitar speed.