garett

Hi All,

I've decided I'm going to start doing technique lessons once a week and posting them here in Riffs for all you song/riff writers to benifit from. If anyone would like to write a lesson themselves just PM me, or, if anyone has a request for a technique they'd like explained feel free to PM me to request it as well.

To start things off I'm going to do a lesson on a technique that's becomming very popular as of late and that people on UG seem to talk about frequently: sweep picking.

The idea behind sweep picking is that you're going to play notes, one after another, that are on strings next to each other, rather than playing notes on the same string. It's the same idea as strumming a chord, except with pick sweeping you want the individual notes to stand out rather than playing them all at the same time. This allows you to play notes one after another much faster than if we were using other techniques such as alternate picking.

The first excersise we'll do will be an arpeggio in D minor (v = downstroke ^ = upstroke):The first set of 3 notes are played strumming down, one after another. The next step are played in up strokes. When you play each note, instead of lifting the pick up after plucking, let it fall onto the next string. You're "sweeping" the strings.

The next excercise is almost identicle except we're adding another string.We can then add a 5th string to this riff if we want. The possibilities are endless. You can use any notes, any arpeggios. We can even add hammer ons and pull offs if we want.That concludes this week's lesson. I hope people find this lesson to be useful. I'd appreciate any input, corrections, suggestions, critiques etc. that anyone has

I'll post a new one next week.

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Garett Spencley - RAW

EpitaphMan440

This is great, nice work garett. Keep it up.

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benjmc

Nice lessons Gar. I was a bit curious about the speed...

And the last part is a bit tricky the first time. It's cos I'm so used to alternate picking. Anyways...thanks for sharing your experience with us.

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The Winter Romance

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cold_static544

Hell yeah, Gar this is kinda cool....and with the fact that we can post questions and stuff...keep it up man...

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NiTrO_FrEeZiNg

Quickly becoming one of the most useful (and popular) members on this board, garett...
Anywas, thanks, a free teacher, that's great!
I know I'm being greedy but could you post a midi to let us know how should it hear or what speed needs?
In the name of most UG members: Thank you

garett

I was seriously considering posting mp3 files to go along with the excercises but the problem is web space. Geocities is very restrictive with bandwidth and they only offer a small ammount of storage space too.

As for speed I should have made a note on that. Play it slowly and work your way up. The idea is to just play it cleanly and to make sure that you're sweeping properly.

Speed comes naturally as you get better at doing the riff. It might take you 2 weeks to do it at yngwie speeds or it might take you 2 years... but don't try and do it fast right off the bat. Just do it at a comfortable speed and make sure it's clean.

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Garett Spencley - RAW

GuitarTom61

One of them, sounded a bit like samba pa ti by santana i thought, but thats probably just me. V good lessons, look forward to next weeks.

turinbrakes

sweetness

Monty

Awsome gar! Thanks a lot, i found this very usefull can't wait too see next weeks installment.

Matt

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