My Personal Tips On Sweep Picking (HTTK Sweep Improvement+FullSong))

[Jak Angelescu]

Hey guys and dolls! The beginning of the video is pretty self-explanatory. But I was really having issues with getting the sweeps to sound better and I was NOT impressed with how I was handling them. I felt like I could get them right “only with luck” but I wasn’t actually aware of HOW I could get them good EVERY TIME.
So I decided to make this video to share my personal growth and realizations with everyone in hopes it may help others. PLUS… I finally showcase how this method has helped improve my overall endurance and I perform the entire song at the end.

 

[Dan Shipway]

When you mentioned about minimal wrist movement, does that only apply to larger sweeps because I find when I am doing 4 string sweeps that I can do it with my wrist without many problems (I am however sweeping slower than the song)

 

[Jak Angelescu]

Hello Dan! There is going to be some wrist movement a little bit. It’s completely impossible to not have your wrist move at all. However, it should be very minimal. Ironically enough, this discovery of mine came when I was trying to play sweeps faster. I was doing mostly wrist movements slow and no matter what I did I couldn’t increase the speed at all. So I just did a Hail Mary shot and I just kept trying to play faster and faster to figure out what I was supposed to do to play faster. Moving your wrist too much proved to me personally, to be extremely counterproductive. For one when you rely primarily on wrist movement, your arm is kind of anchored down you want everything to be as free flowing as possible. I hope that makes sense . If you notice when I play the solo, there are little tips that pop up and point to certain things. Notice that whenever I go to do the economy picking across the strings with numerous strings, a little note pops up that says minimal wrist movement and rely on your arm to move. That’s not what it says word-for-word but at something to that effect.

 

[Dan Shipway]

Cheers for the reply! I am yet to try that out but as i reached 140 bpm (What I can currently sweep at) I noticed some cracks starting to show so I will definitely give this a shot.