Hello.
Here is some beginner sweeping advice for both hands.
Fretting hand:
Start by learning one sweep pattern that feels comfortable to you.
Some sweeping patterns are exceptionally annoying and might drag you down.
Maybe start with these patterns. The third one was personally difficult for me because of the barre.
Picking hand:
Don’t think about sweeping as actually sweeping through your strings with your picking hand trying to keep up with the fretting hand. Even though the point is to play effortlessly and fast, sweeping is not effortless at first.
Think of sweeping as picking every string individually, giving your pick time to turn during the possible legato at the end of the sweep.
Both hands:
Your hands have to be precisely synchronized with each other.
Start by slowly practicing your desired shape one note at a time while doing the sweep with your picking hand slowly. Like 40 bpm slowly. You just want to do it as purely as possible. Your number one priority at this point is to not have any unwanted noises, you only want to hear the pure note that you intend to play.
The key to sweeping is metronome.
After a while of practicing find the spot where you can sweep with a metronome effortlessly. Now add 5 bpm to your current speed, and roll with that for a minute or so. Add another 5 bpm until you are at your limit, and stay there. Make sure your playing is still pure. If you work on this enough without any unwanted side notes, you will see some progress in no time.
A couple more tips:
A good way to practice is to use a clean tone or an acoustic. Or even your electric without any volume. But if you can’t control the distortion, it simply doesn’t sound good.
Using a fret wrap is fine nowadays, but my guitar teacher would beat me with a shoe if he saw me use one, especially at a gig.
Recording your playing with a camera or just a sound recording might help you see mistakes that you haven’t realized before.
Hope this stuff helps, it did help me.
-Renne from Finland
edit: looks like a photo didn't work, but it doesn't really matter
This reply was modified 4 months, 1 week ago by Renne Haapanen.