Guitar Arpeggios with Sweep Picking
An arpeggio is simply the notes of any given chord played or sung in succession rather than simultaneously. You can play every chord as an arpeggio just by playing one note at a time, in any order (arpeggiated picking).
Also known as ‘broken chords’, arpeggios can be played using your thumb, index finger, mid finger and ring finger in succession and different picking orders. You can create a lot of arpeggios combination with your picking fingers.
Another way to play guitar arpeggios is by using your plectrum. This picking technique is called sweep picking. Combine this right hand guitar technique with the left hand arpeggios and you will have a new guitar arsenal to show off.
Sweep picking is also known as “economy picking” because of its naturally efficient use of playing notes. Like the violinist, a guitarist sweep picks each string in a smooth downward and upward motion. As the down or up motion progresses with the picking hand, the fingering hand plays the proper notes at the proper time. The common shapes you can find are one or two-octave triad stacked together. If you look at A minor chord for example you have three notes (triad) in the chord which are A (first or tonic), C (third or median) and E (fifth or dominant).
One-stack triad of A minor arpeggio will be A – C – E – a (downward sweep picking)
Two-stack triad of A minor arpeggio will be A – C – E – a – c – e – a’ (downward sweep picking)
Full downward and upward sweep picking of Am arpeggio can be seen here:
If you are playing acoustic or classical guitar you may find that reaching the fret #17 is not easy. Just subtract all of the numbers above by 7 so your highest note will be D on the fret #10. Now you are playing in Dm.
The key to play sweep picking is to attack one string at a time only while sweeping. Because on some strings you have to play 2 notes you have to use hammer on and pull off technique, for example you will need to do hammer on at string #5. When you attack string #1 both of hammer on and pull off techniques are required to finish all notes on that string in one sweep.
To Your Guitar Success
-TJ-
Beginner Guitar Lessons Admin
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