Originally Posted by: ren
you might also consider learning the 3 string patterns - the 5 and 6 ones are harder to work in to your lead playing... It's using them that presents the real challenge... :cool:
When I first started playing seriously I wanted to learn how to sweep pick so bad because my best friend had already picked up on it... Since then i have put in a lot of hours of constantly sweeping... Since then I've taken a sharp left hand turn out of Metal'ville and into Blues'ville.... Try to practice improving and throwing the sweeps that you already know into your playing... Like Ren said.... that's the difficult part... I found that most of the sweeps that I knew were pretty much useless in anything except shred... So I haven't even touched sweep picking since then.... Here's about the extent of the sweep runs that I use... Often I use them to start a run or to abruptly end a run.... Very rarely do I mix one into the middle of a run....
{--------sweep------------}
|--------------8h11p8--------11b-8-----------------------------
|----------8h11------11p8----------11-8------------------------
|---8h9h10---------------10~------------10b-8-------8/10-8~~-
|-10-------------------------------------------8h9h10-----------
|----------------------------------------------------------------
|----------------------------------------------------------------
Obviously only the first run is a sweep... but the second lick is how I might follow it up... Working in the same pent box as the sweep... Here's another example of what I might do... Just a quick run... more like a rake than an actual sweep... A long sweep would be so out of place in a blues jam... But here's how I would incorporate a different, more simplified version of a sweep... basically just a variation of what I did above with a different follow up lick.
.....^rake.......{----sweep---}
|--------------12--------------------------------------------------------
|---15-12~~----15p12----------------------12-15b-12---------15b 12~--
|--14----------------14p12-----------12-14b-----------14b-12-----------
|-12----------------------12-14~~-14-----------------------------------
|------------------------------------------------------------------------
|------------------------------------------------------------------------
Ah.... blues licks. I don't even know how that will sound.... that's just something off the top of my head but you can see how I work simplified sweeps into my blues style... The most important thing about learning sweeps is learning the ones that benefit you. I wasted a lot of time learning sweeps that I could never possibly make sound good because my style has evolved into such a heavily blues influenced style that a quick accurate sweep would sound as out of place as an eagle in the middle of a flock of ducks... So just try to practice and APPLY the sweeps. It's good practice for dexterity and good to warm up with sweeps up and down the neck but unless you can apply them to your playing they're not doing you much good. If you have to simplify them like I did to adapt it to your style go ahead and do it. Guitar theory is made to be a guide not necessarily the strict laws of playing the guitar. As long as you get the most out your hard long hours of praciticing sweeps... I pretty much wasted 6 hours a day for a month on practicing every sweep I could... now I don't even use them.
*if you try those blues licks and they don't sound right it's probably because I did it from memory and imaginiation... I'm at work and don't have my guitar to see how they sound. But they should okay.
