Sweeping, need help

I've been trying to learn this technique off and on. I can't seem to get it right. I've tried many of the lessons on this site, and practiced it, but it doesn't seem to work. I'm thinking I might need a teacher to show it to me and correct me, as I seem to be unable to learn it off the internet.

Has anyone else had as much trouble with this? And how did you get past it, if you did?

The way I learned to do it was from a video on insaneguitar.com. Here man check it out. I'm still kinda new at it but I'm getting better. Good luck.

http://www.insaneguitar.com/mc/sweeping.html

That's the link to the video and lesson.

pretty cool link man

You bet your ass it's a cool link. I should re-read that lesson...In case I forgot anything.

Oh and also Lohrtar, make sure you play it slow first and bring it up to speed. It's always accuracy over speed.

Sweeping is one of my favourite techiniques and I try to slip it into every lead that I can. It took a long time to come to grips with it and I have to admit, I got nowhere from any internet lessons. I learnt it through trial and error and eventually got to the stage where I can sweep just about any arpeggio (except for the odd Becker patterns!).

The best way to learn them is to actually listen to players that play them perfectly eg Vinnie Moore, Jason Becker, Joe Stump, Michael Angelo and Theodore Ziras. The more you listen to them, the more you can imagine how they are actually played, this really helps the "penny to drop" as this technique is not about having fast fingers, its just about linking your mnd and fingers.

Here are some links to sweeping masters:
www.angelo.com (download the MP3 for "No Boundaries" - crystal clear technique)
www.theodoreziras.com (check out the downloadable videos - this guy is an excellent technician)
http://www.vinniemoore.com/ (download "Defying Gravity" and "Awaken The Madman" - this guy is the only player that plays sweeps patterns that I would consider impossible - also one of the underated guitarists in the world, incredible technique that manages to still sound musical).

Just keep ripping away at the sweeps, try playing them too fast, sometimes you stumble over part of the puzzle by getting the right hand at the right speed. Once the technique suits you, try slowing the right hand down untill the left hand can match the rhythm. Try three strings first, once you can get them it's not much differnt going to 2 octaves over all 6 strings.

Best of luck

For what it's worth, I couldn't get sweep picking properly until I saw someone do it and explain to me.

I thought I could sweep for years, but then realised I couldn't when I saw the dude doing it. Took me a while, but as Superhuman says, it's more about getting it together in your head than having fast fingers (though that helps!). I could never do the 3 string patterns when I was learning, I found the five string major and minor arpeggio patterns were good to learn on...

Try finding a tutor who can sweep - it'll only take you a couple of sessions to get the technique, and then you can practice the patterns and get them up to speed on your own time.

Nice one on the Vinnie Moore reference Superhuman - we don't hear enough of him. I got his 'Mind's Eye' album - and it's amazing..... highly recommended to all of you....