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Guitar Lessons #3

Sweeping Arpeggios

by Bill Majoros
11-27-2003

In the previous column I showed how a "micro-sweep" picking strategy can be used to play fully-picked scales very rapidly and with a minimum of effort. These micro-sweeps consisted of a single picking stroke that swept through two strings, thereby playing two notes with one movement. In this week's column I will show how you can extend such a sweeping technique to play across up to six strings in a single sweep. When done properly this technique can sound very impressive, and has been used effectively by many players including Yngwie Malmsteen and Joe Satriani, to name just two.

We will begin with a very simple pattern, shown below:

(figure 1)

Recall from my previous lessons that this diagram represents an anonymous section of freboard, and that the numbers inside the ovals represent the order in which the notes are to be played -- the numbers do not represent fingerings.

The figure below shows how to pick this pattern:

(figure 2)

Recall that in this tab notation, the numbers represent fret positions, and the line of v's, ^'s, H's, and P's tell you how to pick each note. A 'v' means to down-pick, a '^' means to up-pick, an 'H' means to hammer-on (or slam your fretting finger into the string without picking it), and a 'P' means to pull-off (or twang the string by pulling away the finger on the higher note so that the lower note sounds without having to pick it).

In the figure above I have shown you how I play this particular sweeping pattern: I down-pick the first three notes with a single picking stroke, then hammer on with my pinky at the 13th fret, pull-off to my index finger at the 9th fret, and then up-pick the remaining two notes with a single picking stroke. The notes marked '10' I play with my index finger and the notes marked '11' I play with my middle finger. When you get to the end of this pattern you can repeat it as follows:

(figure 3)

You should play this pattern very slowly at first, concentrating on accuracy rather than speed. The individual notes should come at steady, regular intervals, and should be played with a uniform tone. Only when you can do this well should you increase your speed. Eventually you should be able to play this pattern many times over very rapidly, and the result should sound fairly impressive (if a bit repetitive).

The next step is to add a new note to the sequence to make the arpeggio longer. The figure below shows the same pattern with a new note added on the D-string. I play this note with my middle finger. The new note is marked '1' in the figure below:

(figure 4)

As with the shorter version of the arpeggio, you can chain these patterns together into one long sequence:

(figure 5)

As before, I recommend playing this very slowly at first. This is actually one of my warm-up exercises. I always start playing it very slowly, then speed up very gradually until I can play it smoothly with great speed. Note again that the 'v v v' and the '^ ^ ^' sequences shown along the top of the tab indicate single down or up strokes, not three separate picking motions. It is this consolidation of separate notes into a single stroke that is referred to as sweeping, and it will allow you to play sequences like the one shown above very rapidly.

In figure 6 I finally complete the pattern by adding one more note, on the A-string:

(figure 6)

This new note I play with my pinky. In figure 6 I labelled it '1' to indicate that it should be played as the first note in the arpeggio, though in practice it is sometimes useful to start on one of the higher notes and sweep the arpeggio down (with an up-stroke) toward the lower strings.

(figure 7)

Now that you have the hang of sweeping arpeggios I will show you two others that I often use. The first is shown in figure 8, below:

(figure 8)

I generally don't play the note on the low E-string (the one marked '1'), but sometimes I add it in there, and it doesn't hurt to practice this pattern with the notes on all six strings, because it will help you develop your sweeping technique. However, it is also very useful to insert smaller portions of this or other sweeps into your solos, so you should also practice playing just the notes marked {4,5,6,7} as a continuous sweep, and then the pattern {3,4,5,6,7}, and {2,3,4,5,6,7}. Obviously, you can repeat the whole arpeggio, up and down and up and down again several times very rapidly, and that usually sounds pretty nice.

The other arpeggio I often use is shown below in figure 9. Some guy named Chris Hafler showed me this in 1989 when my band was practicing in a filthy little room in the corner of a plunger factory. I think Chris borrowed it from George Lynch. Anyway, it is very obvious, because the notes marked 1, 2, and 3 make up a very popular chord in heavy metal music:

(figure 9)

In fact, this arpeggio sounds almost exactly like the one I showed you in figure 6, but with one fewer note, so if this one is easier for you to play, you might just use this one rather than the other one, but it is still nice to know them both.

As a final exercise, I direct your attention to the fretboard shown in figure 10. This figure is a very, very useful one, because it shows you the minor keyspace over a large portion of the fretboard. As usual, I haven't given you any fret numbers, because you can slide this template up and down the fretboard as necessary to fit the specific key you're using. The notes marked in red are the root notes -- if you ever get lost while improvising, it is always safe to retreat to one of these notes (as long as the key doesn't change...), and they are also generally a good place to begin a solo, or even to begin your explorations of the fretboard when you're practicing.

The minor keyspace and its roots (in red):

(figure 10)

Looking at the figure above you should be able to find multiple instances of each of the arpeggios I've shown you. In fact, a good exercise is to put your pinky on a note on the A-string, play the appropriate arpeggio (selected from the first two above), and then slide your pinky up the fretboard to the next note on the A-string and play the appropriate arpeggio in that position. There's actually one more pattern which I haven't shown you that you would need in order to do this exercise. It is shown in blue in the figure below:

(figure 11)

You can see that it is very similar in shape to the other two 5-note arpeggios that I've already shown you, which are shown in green and red. With these three patterns in your arsenal, you should be able to play a 5-string arpeggio at any valid position along the A-string. This is very nice for when you're improvising a solo, although it will take some practice for you to develop a sense for which arpeggio is appropriate at each position. I can usually tell by ear while I'm playing, but it's also possible to memorize the sequence of these patterns up and down the fretboard.

When you've mastered all the arpeggios in this lesson you can begin to invent your own by tracing out novel patterns of notes in figure 10. The trick is to try to pick notes on adjacent strings which are close together but not on the same fret. If you try to sweep two notes which are on the same fret you'll either have to bar the notes by laying a finger lengthwise across the strings (which usually sounds a bit sloppy for me), or try to cram two or more fingers into the same fret, which can be awkward, so I try to avoid notes on the same fret.

A nice effect is to mute some or all of the strings with your palm while playing an arpeggio. These subtle nuances will come to you as you get better at sweeping arpeggios, and will eventually help you to combine these techniques into your own distinctive style.