How you doing? Justin here
In this lesson today we're
going to check out mini
sweep picking arpeggios.
Now a lot of you guys
have been asking
for sweep picking lessons.
I'm not really very good
at doing the proper big really very good
sweep picking. I am practicing right now,
so maybe in the future, I'll get good
enough to teach you lads, but right now,
I'm not. Now, little mini sweep picking,
like what I'm going to show you now is the
same technique and by practicing this it
will help you to develop your proper big
full sweep picking patterns, if that's
what you want. The reason I never really
got good at the big ones is because I find
them difficult to use because they're so big.
You have to kind of play, stop for a bit,
then go in to a big sweep, and then get
into whatever else, whatever
licks you'replaying.
Whereas these little mini ones
are easier to use and really good to get
lots of variations of them, so you're able
to use them in lots of different circumstances
be they rock, metal, Jazz whatever you like.
So, uhm, lets get to a close up. We're
going to be doing all of these ones in the
key of A minor. We're just going to be
learning a really basic little shape.
I'm going to show you how to do some
variations of that. And I'm going to
show you how to link it to this other one.
So you can just play the kind of lick that
I just played there at the start. So,
Let's get to a close up look at the left hand.
Don't worry about the picking for now
We're just looking at the notes.
We've got here the 12th fret on the 3rd string, 1st finger
14th fret, 3 rd finger
13 th fret, second finger, on the B string
1st finger on the 12th fret of the inner string
And little finger on the 15th fret of the finish string
What I'd recommend is that you spend a
bit of time just playing this now, over
and over again. Don't worry about the
picking, don't start to try and sweep
just get the notes under your fingers.
So your fingers know what they're doing
In a second, we're going to have to concentrate
on the other hand, and you can't
concentrate on two things at once.
Ok. Now we're looking at the sweeping part.
So checking out here, we've got the same
pattern all of the time now. We're gonna
be doing this. Down.
Hammer.
Down.
Up.
Flick off.
Up
Up.
Down
Hammer.
Down.
Up.
Flick off.
Up.
Down
Hammer
Down.
Up.
Flick off.
Up.
What you're after here, is trying to get
the pick to move nice and slowly and
evenly through the strings. Not like
doing a separate down pick and an up pick
for each one. That would be wrong.
Try and get it to just kind of glide through.
You see eventually it's just like a little
to making that motion.
It's just making that one little
sweeping movement.
As with most things on the guitar.
If you want to play them fast, the trick
is to practice really slowly a lot.
And gradually build the speed up.
And this kind of sweep picking is no different
However, there does come a point where
you have to try to get the actual flow of
the sweep working. And it never really
works until you just go for it.
So, what I'd really recommend that you do
is practice doing that one pattern really
really slowly a lot.
I mean slowly like...
That kind of speed, maybe even slower.
Just really watch your pick hand,
try and get that motion to be really smooth.
Practice it like that for a half an hour
or an hour or something, you know.
If you don't practice that long, 15 mins
every day for a week or two. Just really
try and get that motion so it's really
smooth and flowing together properly, and
then every now and again, have a little
burst and see if you can do it really quick.
It's kind of, you have to have done it
slowly enough times otherwise the muscle
memory won't be there.
But you will find that if you've practice
it slowly enough, there will come a point
where you just suddenly start doing it,
and the picking will just flow.
And that's essentially what you're looking
for, for any of these kind of these common
or sweep picking kind of techniques.
Now as I mentioned before, there are a lot
of different ways of exploring this idea.
Now we've just looked at an A minor arpeggio.
I'm just going to show you up close now,
a couple of ways of exploring that one shape.
If you go, through a little bit more
advanced, you might want to try playing
around with some of these ideas
Let's go to a close up, and look at some
variations that use the same technique in
the same pattern, but slightly different
finger combinations.
So the one we looked at already was this
nice simple A minor 7 arpeggio.
Couple of nice little variations that you
might want to try. One is to turn it into
a minor 7 flat 5 arpeggio. Exactly
the same notes, but this first finger drop
down to the 11th fret.
Now this would work, over an F chord.
Cause really it's a minor 7 flat 5.
Which works out as being an F9, and so,
that's our first funky one to check out.
Now you could always use this same shape
for a diminished arpeggio.
Yeah, 12, 15, 14, 12, 15.
Any of you guys into ?? would know that
one already.
And this one moves around in thirds, so
whatever the finger was at the end, here
down three frets. Goes down three frets again.
And down 3 frets again. And that's where
you get a lot of those heavier metal licks
So a lick like that...
Down, hammer, down, down, up flick off
up, up, down, slide, hammer, down, down,
up, flick off, up, up, down.
Slide, hammer, down, down,
Up, flick off, up, up, down, down
Ok, so far we've only been looking at
the finished 3 strings, but if we just
take that simple minor 7 arpeggio that
we've been looking at already in A, and
move it over to the next 3 strings,
We end up with the middle part of an E7 arpeggio
Which is of course useful to think of it
that way. You could also come up with
arpeggios on the next 3 strings using the
5th, 4th and 3rd string. This was one
that I was using in the beginning. That
first lick I played you here.
This is an A minor 6 arpeggio. We're
starting on the note F sharp, but
the 9th fret, 12, 10, 9, 12.
And what I really like about this shape is
that it joins onto the other one we've got
if we go down, up, hammer, down, down,
slide, hammer,down, down, now we're into
that middle one.
We can use the little slide
I hope you've enjoyed a look at these
mini sweep picking arpeggios. They're
a lot of fun, they're very useful because
they're like a little bite size chunk.
You shouldn't have to much trouble
working them into your playing,
and that's kind of the point now.
Once you've learned the shape, you have
to try to work out how you're going to get
into it. Uhm, it's always the hardest thing.
The starting and finishing with these
things because they usually tend to sound
like you kind of playing away. Doing
your licks or whatever and then suddenly
you stop and suddenly go into a sweep pick
and then you stop again and do something else.
It always tends to sound a bit lame.
The guys who do it really good are the
guys that just kind of effortlessly flow
into these monster licks and then they
flow out again.
I must admit, I must be honest here, I
have a lot of trouble doing that, you know
I'm not really good at that really fast
technical kind of stuff. That's why it's
taken me so long to give you guys a lesson on it.
Because I don't like teaching stuff I
can't do very well. But, I made a bit of
an exception here. This is a really good
fun thing to do, you know.
And it's quite a usable little trick.
I think a lot more usable than the really
big sweeping shapes, and uh, I think with
a little bit of practice you'll be able
to tear these up all over the finger board
At least I hope so.
I hope you enjoyed that.
Take care of yourselves.
Plenty more advice and some more hints on
how to use this stuff on the webpage.
Just look it up in the index.
of course, on the website justinguitar.com
I'll see you for another lesson real soon.
Take care of yourselves, bye bye.