How is your sweep picking?

[Phantasmagoria]

Well, I've got nothing against players who are highly technical in their approach &/or sweep pick constantly (..most of my favourite guitar players are shred demons!), stuff like that can sound awesome if done right, not clinical at all...it's just how someone goes about it that makes a huge difference...

I think the ability to actually phrase things, throw in some nice bends & decent vibrato, a guitar tone that does'nt sound like a dying cat, that's what makes all the diference...lol.


Here's what I think sounds like ****





And this, on the other hand, is pretty cool and impressive...





So is this....

[Jessie's ghost]

^ Interesting trio of contestants!

The first guy was technically amazing, but artistically he was a snore. Awesome skills, and I'll never be able to play like that, but I wouldn't buy a whole CD of that.

The second guy turned me off a little by being so highly derivative of Malmsteen, but his phrasing was very nice, his tone was nice, and he has a great expressive quality on those bends and trem moves.

I really enjoyed the third guy. Great playing and musicianship. I could listen to more of him. I detect some Satriani in there, as well as some things I've never heard before.

[drew_half_empty]

I sometimes get tripped up on ones crossing more than 4 strings. Back when I learned em I could do em all day but as time went on I found it kind of impractical from a melodic standpoint to just sit there and nail every chord tone across 6 strings--I use them more in passing or as a bridge to higher/lower notes than as a focal point

[Phantasmagoria]

@Jessie's Ghost; Yeah, the fiirst guy, Fareri, is my pet hate....lol. He sweeps all over the place, and alternate picks at 145368y39889092375654328764 bpm, but musically he is ZERO. What's really hilarious is his vibrato & when he attempts to actually bend a note. The dude is tone deaf. Sorry, but that's my worst kind of shred.

Bellas (the second guy) does the constant sweeping etc.... but what a huge difference that other stuff makes (Phrasing, vibrato, tone and and musical sense).

The third guy is amazing. He's a (relatively) unknown player/teacher from Brasil & is working on his first album...

[Petrovsk Mizinski]

Lmao Fareri. He truly has that 'youtube shredder' sound about him. The Kirk Hammett video, over the top cartoonish sounding sweeping etc. I just can't get how anyone could dig that at all. It's everything that's wrong with modern 'shred' guitar in one box.
If you actually listen, many of his sweeps aren't even played all that cleanly.
One thing that makes guys like Satch, Paul Gilbert etc so great is that they know where their limits are, and don't try to play beyond that, so you don't have to worry about hearing some god awful shred pattern where all you hear is the first and last note of the pattern.

Bellas is cool, but along with Joe Stump, it's just too "Malmsteen-y" for me.

That Brazilian guy is interesting. Some of his licks are really tasty and awesome, sometimes some great phrasing, then sometimes he goes way too over the top and I just want to close the youtube browser tab. Mostly some of those tapping things, just too much for me.
Talented guy for sure though.

[Zhangliqun]

I use it some but not much, it's a little TOO smooth and legato for my tastes to use beyond the point of it becoming even noticeable. The touch is by nature soft and requires more gain than I like in order to have consistent note-to-note volume, and it makes even a bridge pickup sound like a neck. When going fast, I like the machine gun attack of a bridge pickup played with pure, unadulterated alternate picking. So that's what I do...

[Ayrton]

Not my thing, so I don't try. I don't care for the sound or how it fits musically.

[grumptruck]

I thought you of all people would be a sweeping beast.

[korovamilkdud]

I played for 16 or 17 years before I even knew what it was. I figure now that it really wasn't meant to be.

[Jeff5]

It's a work in progress for me. I'm getting better at it, but struggle with it techinically and also to fit in with my style of play. Still, I think there is value in it and it is a skill I will develop.

[StillLearnin']

Less is more. Playing these days I make more $$ putting one note in the right place... That leaves a lot of the techniques I worked on for years like sweep picking something to keep in the back pocket for the right occasion.

[Simon_F]

I would have to google sweep picking to be certain of what it is. That's how good I am at it

[wahwah]

It's not great.

Ok, it's not good.

Ok, I don't know how.

Ok, I've never tried.

I am to sweep picking what Yehudi Menuhin is to spot welding.




Cheers............................. wahwah

[crusty philtrum]

I am to sweep picking what Yehudi Menuhin is to spot welding.




Cheers............................. wahwah

WOW ... so you're saying Yehudi Menuhin was another virtuoso who loved building hot rods too, just like Jeff Beck ?

I've seen some of Jeff Beck's cars featured in hot-rod magazines in the past, but never Yehudi J Menuhin's cars .... I will go and search the archives and back issues of car magazines and their websites and try to find articles and pics of the Menuhin hot rods.

(btw, i've found the best way to sweep is to fret the chord shape on the fretboard and brush the strings with the picking hand using a brush or broom to create the sweep. Get yourself the right broom and you'll be sweeping in no time, just like i was. Don't forget to wear a dust mask.)

[Wattage]

OK for ****s and giggles I tried doing it. A little tricky to get the flow going but it seems like fun kind of, think I'll work on a few things to see what I can make happen. Good party trick if nothing else.

[dr. ad]

i've tried 3 times in 19 years of playing
i suck at sweep picking. i arpeggiate fingerstyle or rake with the pick on the rare occasions i attempt anything like it

i've seen petrovsk "harry" mizinski play challenging technical stuff (including sweeps) that i may never be able to do, and having listened to some of zombiedude's clips i would say you guys are both "up there", as we say here.

up until recent times i've avoided it in all forms because i didn't appreciate it, i couldn't do it, and it didn't fit my vision of "what metal should be"; but BTBAM and dethklok have since convinced me there is a place for it

[Petrovsk Mizinski]

i've tried 3 times in 19 years of playing
i suck at sweep picking. i arpeggiate fingerstyle or rake with the pick on the rare occasions i attempt anything like it

i've seen petrovsk "harry" mizinski play challenging technical stuff (including sweeps) that i may never be able to do, and having listened to some of zombiedude's clips i would say you guys are both "up there", as we say here.

up until recent times i've avoided it in all forms because i didn't appreciate it, i couldn't do it, and it didn't fit my vision of "what metal should be"; but BTBAM and dethklok have since convinced me there is a place for it

I have to wonder if :

1. I'm too hard on myself.
2. You saw me playing when I was having a good day.
3. Or whether I'm actually okay

I honestly don't think I'm a particularly strong shredder at all. I constantly hear stuff on various forum boards that takes a giant dump on my attempts at 'shred'.
I guess you must have just saw me just doing some relatively slow sweeps, but cleanly. Gives off a better impression than trying do it as fast as possible with as little actual notes being played.

Speaking of BTBAM, back when I was still practicing my sweeping, I used to be able to play the Selkies : The Endless Obsession solo very well.
I would actually play it all 3 frets down,since I was tuned to E standard and didn't have a guitar in C# (so consequently I never bothered to learn the entire song) which only added to the difficulty.
Part of my 'sweep testing' I was talking about earlier in the thread included trying to play this solo.
Complete fail As soon as it got to the F# arpeggio shape, I wasn't able to hold it together.
I should have kept practicing sweeping, if only just to be able to play that solo, which has a damn fine example of sweep picking used tastefully and in a good melodic sense.

[GoldenVulture]

WOW ... so you're saying Yehudi Menuhin was another virtuoso who loved building hot rods too, just like Jeff Beck ?

I've seen some of Jeff Beck's cars featured in hot-rod magazines in the past, but never Yehudi J Menuhin's cars .... I will go and search the archives and back issues of car magazines and their websites and try to find articles and pics of the Menuhin hot rods.

(btw, i've found the best way to sweep is to fret the chord shape on the fretboard and brush the strings with the picking hand using a brush or broom to create the sweep. Get yourself the right broom and you'll be sweeping in no time, just like i was. Don't forget to wear a dust mask.)

What you need is these[ see below ] they're compact and will have a percussive element to them too; and ... they're made for musicians who want to sweep, rake and brush.

[tc]

I'm ok I guess. I used to be able to play the first half of the Serrana arpeggios at a pretty decent speed. I guess I still could if I started practicing that specific sequence again...even though that change over to the last section comprised mostly of diminished arpeggios would kill me for some reason. Took me a lot of work to even get there.

As for it's utility, it really helped me open up the way I visualized the fretboard IMO. Sweep picking (not necessarily just arpeggios but scale lines) really showed me how a more vertical approach gives way to larger and very interesting intervals. Not to mention that I have more of a start/stop syncopated thing going on a lot of the times without realizing it (I guess because I'm the only non-drummer in the family) so sweep picking actually works for me.

I think the main problem is people associate sweep picking and tapping with 80's shred when in the end they're just a means to an end. Tons of other players from other genres use those techniques to come up with really interesting note choices and inflection that otherwise would not be permissible with just alternate picking and basic left hand legato.

[Varg]

You missed out an option in the poll

It fits my musical style, but I hate it.

Im in a band with a young guy who, when asked to write a solo for a song, no matter the song, will always use sweep picking, a la Chris Broderick. I cant stand it. Ive actually found myself playing much slower lead lines than I would normally do just to offset that.

Marty Friedman and Jeff Waters are my guitar gods - Chris Broderick et al make me want to stop listening to music.