Sweep Picking Essentials

TrueFire Foundry courses are independently produced courses presented by a hand-picked selection of top-notch artists and educators from around the world. Filmed in the educator’s own studio, Foundry courses bring fresh educational concepts and very effective teaching methodologies to TrueFire Students. Scott Allen’s Foundry course, Sweep Picking Essentials will show teach you sweep picking techniques for the modern rock guitarist.

Hello I'm Scott Allen — welcome to my TrueFire Foundry course, Sweep Picking Essentials, which I produced in my own studio.

This course is for intermediate to advanced players that would like to learn and develop their sweep picking technique. We will start at the ground floor by learning our arpeggio shapes and getting familiar with the concept of sweep picking.

We will start with the most basic triad arpeggios and learn how to coordinate our sweep picking while using the arpeggios. Once we have an understanding of the technique we will then learn to use the metronome to develop both speed and rhythmic awareness.

Next we will learn how to apply the arpeggios when improvising. First we will apply arpeggios within the key over a chord progression. Here we will do some jamming to see how the Arpeggios sound when you apply them to a key. Once we are comfortable with that concept we will apply the arpeggios to the chords themselves. Here we will outline chord progressions much in the same way most great neo-classical players do.

Once the basics are learned, we will get into multi-octave sweeps that cover an extended range of the fretboard. Here we will learn to incorporate hammer-ons and pull-offs as well as position shifts to our sweep picking. This is where we get into some sweep ideas like those used by Jeff Loomis and Jason Becker.

We will then get into Marty Friedman territory by learning extended triad arpeggios that cover the entire neck. We will get down the Major, Minor, and Diminished arpeggios and learn how to apply them to the key for improvising. We will also learn how to develop the coordination slowly so that the technique is absolutely solid.

Next we will get into the harmonically rich sounding seventh chord arpeggios like those used by Richie Kotzen. These beautiful sounding Arpeggios will add a dose of sophistication to your sweeps and will give you a slightly more fusion sound. They will also allow you to imply a sophisticated harmony to a simple rock progression. These arpeggios will incorporate many position shifts and hammer ons and we will walk through each one so that that you can add them to your arsenal.

We will finish up with some more seventh chord arpeggios, but this time the kind favored by fusion monster Greg Howe. These will make use of some arpeggio shapes most players are already familiar with and will be an easy and cool way to add some spice to your arpeggio tool kit.

By the time you finish this course you will have learned everything from the most basic arpeggios and sweep picking applications to sophisticated multi-octave and seventh chord sweeps used by master guitar players all over the world. You will also learn how to use the metronome to build speed, coordination, and rhythmic awareness. These are all skills that will serve you in all aspects of your guitar playing.

Whether you have been using sweep picking for years or have never worked with sweep picking before, Sweep Picking Essentials will power your improvisational arsenal.

Ready to get started? Grab your guitar and let’s get dig in!

NOTE! Scott Allen organized the course into 8 weekly sections for those students that prefer to have a specified regimen of material across a specified time schedule. However, for those students who prefer to work at their own pace, or even skip around you are certainly encouraged to approach the course in that way as well.