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Plus 5 Video Guitar Lessons
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In this lesson I am going to explain a guitar technique
called "sweep picking" or also known as "economy
picking". Sweep picking allows you to play a flurry of notes
at a speed that would be very difficult to match using just alternate
picking.
The basic idea of sweep picking is that you are
going to play 2 or more notes on adjacent strings using the same
picking direction for all of the notes.
A lot of times when the technique of sweep picking
is talked about, it is in the context of shedding metal guitar.
Players like John Petrucci from Dream Theater, or Yngwie Malmsteen
playing lightning speed sweep arpeggios across all 6 strings.
But that is only part of what can be done with sweep picking.
The technique can be used in a much more subtle manner for some
great effects.
The
Sweep
Here is one of the most basic sweep picking ideas.
You are going to play and arpeggio (the notes of a chord played
one at a time) on 3 adjacent strings. This example is a Dm arpeggio
on the top 3 string. When sweep picking, you do not want to lift
up your pick for each individual note. You want to just let your
pick glide (sweep) across the surface of the strings. It is similar
to the motion for strumming, but you will articulate each note
rather that just hearing all of the notes together as one chord.
You also will not want to hold all of your fingers down as if
you where playing a chord.
 =
pick down |
 =
pick up |
Here you are just reversing the direction and sweep picking up
on all of these notes.
Here you are sweeping picking down, then up. The trick is to
keep a steady rhythm.
Page 2, adding hammer-ons and
pull-off to the sweep 
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