Question about Sweeping

[Rgt_Lover]

O.K so I have been practising these 3 string sweeps till they are coming out of my ears. I can do all variations cleanly and smoothly, and now quite fast.

What I want to know is what would you guys advise me moving on to? Straight onto 5 string arpeggios? Or What?

Any help from the more experienced players much appreciated.

[Chris From Singapore.]

I think the toughest part of sweeping has got to be the continuity portion of it.

Let's say you're doing a sweep, any number of strings for that matter, you start from the 1st high E string, go back down, and once you're about to hit the lowest string of the arpeggio or scale, you have to decide whether it's gonna be a down stroke or upstroke.

This for me is probably the hardest bit to master.

I feel sweeping is most based on the right hand and since I'm lefthanded player playing righthanded it's kinda hard for me to get. Legato has come more naturally to me but the whole up and down motion has been something I've shyed away from somewhat.

Keep at it and try to master the movement of the right hand. After that it's all just coordination between the two hands.

Try the sweeps in the solo of Shy Boy, that one is a real challenging one, probably the most commonly used Vai sweep, 4 string sweep, same shape just played at 3 different positions. You can find it at approximately 2.00 onwards.

Keep at it dude you'll be shredding in no time

[nickcoumbe]

I don't find 4 strings that much more difficult than 3. 4 is obviously the natural progression from 3 so maybe go there next.

5 and 6 are of a similar complexity. They are both bloody hard! I personally don't practice those as a straight up and down exercise, I don't really see myself using them in a song more than once in a phrase. I often write short pieces of 3/4/5/6 string sweeps with a few changes here and there as an exercise. I find that is a better way to learn the technique, and rationalise how it all fits together.

[Chris From Singapore.]

Yeah I agree.

Rationalisation is the most important part, learning the technique is useless if you don't know how to really apply it. For the most part I use 4 string sweeps

[vette6600]

actually, i wouldn't move to anything different yet. learn what notes in the scale are surrounding the sweep and work on sliding to those.

based off em7

10 / 12 \ 10 po 7 -----------------------------------
------------------8---------------------------------
---------------------9 \ 7 / 9 ----------------------
----------------------------------------------------
---------------------------------------------------
----------------------------------------------------

hopefully this turns out right hahaha. its supposed to start with 2 slides on the high E string ( d to e, then back to d ) and then a pull off ( d to b ) and then a similar slide technique at the bottom of the sweep. doing this will make you think about the surrounding notes. so instead of sweeping, then stopping and going into a scale run or something, you can effectively and smoothly go from one idea/technique to the next. this will stop you from making a solo sound like a sweeping excercise (which is cool sometimes as well!) i guess my main point is learn the other notes in the key right around your sweep.

[nickysplendid]

i've been making a serious attempt to crack sweeping...spent 2 weeks solid doing nothing but 3 string sweeps (with metronome) and then i found a cool sounding 5 string sweep - and the 5 string sweep seems easier than the 3!

the shyboy sweeps i found quite easy (i ain't showing off here) but they seemed to come easy...maybe cos i can hear how they sound in the context of a song.

i really wanna learn the sweeps at the beginning of the solo in Drop in the bucket off the dave lee roth album "a lil aint enough".

has anybody got tabs for that? ;-)

[nickcoumbe]

I took ages to learn one 3 string sweep shape. I pretty much ignored it after that as it didn't really apply to my playing at the time. A few years later I decided to learn all the three string sweeps in a scale and make an exercise by playing them 4 times each, then twice each, then just once before changing position. I had a weekend when my girlfriend was staying with me and had flu, so I basically looked after her, and practiced the rest of the time. I came away from that weekend with a solid clean technique, and it definately helped me get my head around the scales.