what IS sweep picking?

i'm a self-taught guitarist, and i've read a lot of things that talk about sweep picking. so I figure it must be something sort of important to know... does it have something to do with sort of "strumming" and playing notes with hammer-ons or something? i feel like an idiot not knowing, but... i figured i oughta know :-)

As a very young, inexperienced self-taught guitarist I know exactly where you're coming from, i.e. "It's every, better learn it".
Look through Johan's section, there's plenty of sweep licks there that'll at least show you what to do, but basically sweep picking is where you play the notes of a chord, one per string, all in the same direction, understanding so far? So, if you've formed the F Major barre chord, it'd look a little like so

|--1----|
|--1----|
|--2----|
|--3----|
|--3----|
|--1----| It tab form, that normal shows you "strum" the chord, right? But, again in tab form, if written like so


|------1-|
|-----1--|
|----2---|
|---3----|
|--3-----|
|-1------| would mean that you play each note seperatly, with me so far? Now, not only do you play each note one at a time, but the pick also travals only one direction, in this case, downwards. No doubt this has only added to your confussion, I apologise, but give you one tip in my certain lack of wisdom, don't feel an idiot by not knowing this, there was probably a time when Hendrix didn't know to play with his teeth, he managed to though, eh? Keep at, playing guitar mightn't be the easiest thing to do, but it's better than giving up. Hope I've helped, check out Johan's section and keep learnin'!

Willdridge, 14 years of complete unwisdom!

aha! well that's not so tough. I'll check out his page for the exercies! thanx a million, I appreciate it!,
bob

That's pretty much it, but be careful, cause there's a mistake a lot of people make and it is often the difference between poorly executed sweeping and very good sweeping. You cannot let the notes ring into each other, so don't hold down a barre chord and sweep, that's not the purpose of sweeping. It may sound good, but once you add any distortion it sounds horrible when the notes ring into each other. This usually isn't a problem, but when you are playing notes on consecutive strings on the same fret it gets to be tough, you have to learn how to roll your finger such that you mute the note with your left hand after you play it. It's mastering this technique that separates the men from the boys when it comes to sweeping. (I sadly, am still a boy.) To really get it down, it takes awhile, and it aint easy to do it at high speeds. For in depth lessons, go to www.guitarworld.com and go to the lessons sections. Yngwie and Petrucci both address this issue and give relatively good sweeping lessons. While I dont really like their style of music, they do know how to explain things when it comes to technique, i suggest you check out the site. They have lessons from tons of people verybody from Buddy Guy to Dimebag Darrel to Eric Johnson.

yeah, I did mean to say at the end that there were one or two thing's I'd missed, but I had to run off somewhere, sorry about that, but Daniel seems to of picked up where I left off, so just keep at it, it's well worth the effort!

Glad to of helped,

Willdridge

ah. well now it doesn't sound as easy, but it sounds like something worth learning. thanx a lot both of you for all your help. i greatly appreciate it!
Bob

check out Ultimate Guitar Page, ultimateguitarpage.com, no need to put www. believe it or not, this also has so much more in depth looks at sweep, one lesson even has video footage in RealAudio, this site helped me LOADS before I found GuitarTricks! And, like most things, once you understand it, it's simple - I remember those faithful days when tab was beyond me.....