Easy Guitar Speed Exercises That Make Your Sweep Picking Arpeggios More Creative
Playing the same sweep picking patterns over and over makes you sound just like everyone else… it’s easy to play much more creative and interesting sweep arpeggios by simply adding a few notes, changing positions or altering the way you play rhythms.
Use these easy guitar speed exercises to learn creative sweep picking ideas and give yourself a lot more soloing options with arpeggios:
Guitar Speed Exercise #1: Make Your Soloing More Creative By Adding Just One Note To Basic Sweep Picking Arpeggios
Playing sweep picking arpeggios made from 7th chords adds one note to the three used in basic arpeggios. Doing this makes your guitar playing sound much more interesting and gives you a ton of new creative options to work with.
These simple 3-string 7 chord arpeggios instantly gives your sweep picking a more unique sound when compared to what most people use:
Even when you aren’t used to these patterns, they are easily mastered by breaking them down into two parts as a simple exercise:
- The notes of the G and B string
- The notes of the B and E string
Practicing both of these parts at a fast speed helps you perfect the notes so the arpeggio sounds seamless when you combine everything together.
This video demonstrates how cool an Am7 arpeggio sounds while played with sweep picking:
Guitar Speed Exercise #2: Make Your Sweep Picking Stand Out Using The Unique Sound Of Quartal Chords
Quartal chords are chords built on the interval of a 4th. For example: A – D – G (A to D is a fourth and D to G is a fourth). Using these types of arpeggios in the place of more conventional ones sounds very unique and is sure to get people’s attention when you play with them.
These arpeggios are unique in that they use rolling technique with the middle finger on the B and E strings respectively:
Practice playing all four of these arpeggios in a row using only the ascending version shown in the tab. Then practice them using only descending. This isolates the downstroke and upstroke aspects of your sweep picking technique to help you easily focus on perfecting them.
Learn how to master rolling technique by reading this sweep picking article and watching the demonstration below:
Here is another cool quartal arpeggio that uses a wider pattern:
Practicing this helps you improve your two-hand sync because it requires very precise timing to fret the note at the exact moment you play the string.
Guitar Speed Exercise #3: Become A More Versatile Lead Guitarist By Playing Conventional Sweep Picking Arpeggios In New Positions
It’s easier to play sweep picking arpeggios with tons of speed in any musical situation when you know how to play the same arpeggios in different fretboard positions. This gives your guitar playing more versatility, so you are able to seamlessly combine arpeggios with other patterns on the fretboard.
Practice the following arpeggios at fast speeds:
Using these patterns not only gives you new options for playing the same arpeggio in different locations, but it also gives you new options in terms of how the arpeggio sounds.
Compare the Am arpeggio above to the conventional pattern that is played on the 14th fret of the G string, 13th fret of the B string and 12th fret of the E string. There is a huge difference between these two patterns! Why? This simple two-string one above uses legato to play the notes with a hammer-on and pull-off.
Use this to your advantage while soloing to give yourself more ways to express ideas using the exact same notes! This leads to…
Guitar Speed Exercise #4: Play Interesting Sweep Picking Licks Without Using Any New Notes
One of the biggest reasons why the arpeggios most guitarist play become boring is they use the same note rhythms all the time. By simply using different note rhythms in your arpeggios, you not only make them easier to play (in many cases), but you make them more musically interesting.
This video demonstrates how easy it is to make your sweep picking arpeggios sound more creative by just changing their rhythm very slightly:
This makes your sweep picking arpeggios instantly recognizable compared to the sea of arpeggios out there that all use the same rhythms over and over.
Think of different ways to use rhythm to make your arpeggios sound creative (in addition to what is shown in the video) by improvising with the arpeggios in this article using a variety of note rhythms
Now that you have some easy exercises to give you tons of speed with arpeggios, learn how to express yourself better with excellent guitar phrasing. Start playing emotional solos that inspire people using this free guitar soloing eBook.