All You Need To Know About Learning To Play Guitar Arpeggios Fast Like Lightning & Super-Clean
Playing fast sweep picking arpeggios sounds awesome and feels incredible. Plus, being able to sweep pick gets the attention and admiration of guitarists and non-musicians alike. However, before you can dominate arpeggios on the fretboard, you need to understand the fundamentals behind making them sound clean.
Clean sweep picking arpeggios involve:
·
Each note of the arpeggio sounding individually
(no notes bleeding together)
·
No open string noise
· No muffled/scratched noises
Clean up your sweep picking now by mastering clean technique
in both hands:
Develop Clean Sweep Picking Technique Using The Fretting Hand:
Playing fast guitar arpeggios cleanly takes the muting work
of not just your picking hand, but your fretting hand too.
The main job of your fretting hand is to keep notes from ringing out together while preventing string noise from any strings above the one you are playing on.
Here’s how it works:
First, use the side of your fretting hand index finger to lightly dampen any strings higher (in pitch) than the one you are playing.
This prevents unused string noise from occurring.
Next, keep notes of the arpeggio from bleeding together by “releasing” the string after a note is played and before playing a note on the next string.
This means: lift the fretting finger off the fret just enough so that it is lightly touching the string, but not actually pressing the string down.
Check out this video to see muting in the fretting hand for cleaner sweep picking:
Develop Clean Sweep Picking Technique Using The Picking Hand:
One of the main misconceptions about muting string noise with the picking hand is thinking that palm muting is the best way to do it. Palm muting is great for playing rhythm guitar parts with a specific sound, but not so great for muting when compared to muting with your thumb.
Instead, use your picking hand thumb to mute unplayed strings that are lower than the one you are playing.
Additionally: use any available (picking hand) fingers to mute unplayed strings by lightly laying them on the strings higher than the one you are playing.
Play Fast And Clean Guitar Arpeggios With Rolling Technique:
Rolling technique is a special sweep picking technique that allows you to sweep across multiple strings where the same fret is played.
If you were playing a barre chord to do this, you would
allow the strings to ring out together.
Since you are sweep picking, you must use a different approach.
Practice isolating the rolling movement in any arpeggio using different fingers to improve your rolling ability with each one.
Over time, you get a great feel for this and playing amazing sweep picking arpeggios becomes easy.
Make Cleaning Up Arpeggios Feel Less Overwhelming Using This Approach:
Practicing large sweep picking patterns becomes frustrating
and overwhelming when you make a lot of mistakes. This frustration is easily
avoided when you use one simple approach:
Master arpeggios two notes at a time.
How does this work?
Simply break any arpeggio pattern down and focus only on repeating two notes at a time.
This narrows your focus, making it easier to concentrate and
hear inconsistencies in your playing.
Example: For Any 3 String Arpeggio
Practice the first two notes in an arpeggio ascending only for 1 minute, then the 2nd and 3rd notes for another minute, then focus on the descending parts of the pattern.
This not only makes mastering sweep picking arpeggios easier in general, but also makes larger patterns feel less overwhelming to learn.
Now that you know how to play fast and clean arpeggios on guitar, learn how to use arpeggios more creatively. Get started by downloading this emotional guitar soloing resource.