Alternatives to Sweep-Picking

[Vanya]

The other week I was just messing around trying to figure out new ways of playing old and tired arpeggios. Or actually, I was trying to find a way to play arpeggios all over the place, regardless of shapes, without having to practise or memorise the bastards; that is to say, enable myself greater flexibility and keep myself out of creative ruts.

Ironically, I wrote an exercise based on a trope, that bastion of arpeggiated nonsense: neoclassical shred. 

I figured I might as well share it here and see if anyone else gets a bit of inspiration from it. Not in the musical sense obviously, but how it can "unlock" and enable one to play relatively simple shapes we all know from before, and reintegrate them into a completely new approach to arpeggios (and hopefully improvisation as a whole). 

For a while now I've been working on integrating the remainder of the fingers on my picking hand into my playing. My reasons for this are many, but primarily because it affords me economy of motion, rhythmic accuracy and intervals that have more in common with piano and brass instruments than guitar. It's taken a while, but it's paid off. The hardest part is gaining individual control between the pinky and the ring finger. The former is generally weak and tied in its movements to the ring finger. 

Anyhow, here's a short explanation of the symbols in the below PDF:

m = middle
r = ring
p = pinky

The rest (upstrokes, downstrokes, hammer-ons-from-nowhere etc) are standard fare.

Now a breakdown of the exercises:

Measure 1: The first exercise is to demonstrate the old sextuplet pattern we all know, and how to repeat it - just looking at the right hand fingerings they would appear counterintuitive, but after a week you'll likely be able to perform these AS FAST as regular regular sweeps, except more accurately with better timing and tone separation. See how it feels. Try and internalize it.  

I start the whole shebang by plucking with my ring finger, although you can go ahead and begin using the picking pattern in the second half of the measure. I begin with fingerpicking because it's more controlled (for me).

 

Measure 3: The second exercise is the same as the first but the pattern moves between strings. No sweat. Note that I've integrated the above tip into the first pattern. It's up to you how you start off. I'd go with ring finger, middle, pick as with the first pattern in measure 1. 

 

Measure 5: The third exercise is more of the same really, just moving around the board a bit. 

 

Get comfortable with the pattern. Sleep on it. 

 

Measure 11: The fourth and final exercise kind of takes things out to lunch. Measures 11, 12 and 13 are insipid crap we've heard on a billion and one records. But since we don't have to abide by the pick and its inability to "teleport" (we HAVE to cross strings...), why not just skip strings? Enter measures 15 onwards - here I've decided to just replace the 5th in each chord shape with a note that's a string lower. What's more, we can just "stack" subsequent triads after playing the arpeggio, all moving in the same ascending direction - another thing that would be kinda tough/sloppy with a pick, but which can be played at ones leisure using this approach. Helpful in minimising the influence of nerves during live performances.

 

At measure 19 I get a bit mean - the 5 string arp requires the use of the pinky with measure 21 demonstrating how to complete the whole shape in this manner. 

 

The important thing is to jog creativity - try and apply these shapes to one's you already know, and see how it feels. Hopefully it will open up new possibilities and make one less dependent on well-trodden musical ground. 

 

Good luck! 

 

Hybrid Arps.pdf