Mini Sweep Picking Arpeggios (Guitar Lesson RO-004) How to play

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.

Down.

Up.

Flick off.

Up

Up.

Down

Hammer.

Down.

Down.

Up.

Flick off.

Up.

Up.

Down

Hammer

Down.

Down.

Up.

Flick off.

Up.

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.