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Try doing it fast and sloppy as well as slow and accurate. Switching between these two at different tempos eventually should help you to arrive at a place where you have more control and feel more relaxed. Also think about pick slanting.
Originally Posted by AllanAllen
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03-18-2026 10:04 AM
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Slanting totally helps, when I remember to do it.
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my old classical guitar teacher would call this "sprints." Originally Posted by James W
slow slow slow slow FAST
Usually I set the metronome super super slow. Like if I'm trying to play half note 120 on this tune, I'll set the metronome for quarter note 60. Then I'll play quarter note pulse for my slow runs and half note pulse for the fast.
The caveat is that you do not want to practice it fast. Play it once. If you mess it up, that's cool. Don't try to correct it. You'll end up making the mistake again and practicing the mistake in. The slow is for practicing in the muscle memory. The fast is for teaching your hands what it feels like to play fast.
Other ideas:
1. When you're playing slow, focus on feeling the rest stroke in both directions. Like feel the pick push into and rest against the next string.
2. Play pianissimo. It shouldn't make a difference, but it does. When we play loud, we tense up. Usually we have to unlearn that habit and remind ourselves pretty constantly.
3. It can be really helpful to practice using different subdivisions. Try the rhythm as written. Try eighth notes, triplets, sixteenths. Etc.
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Also, with sweeps, be sure the notes are in time. Once you get past the stage of it feeling like you're dragging your pick over a cattle-grid, it's very easy to start rushing instead.
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It may help to vary the way you pick it, the up and down strokes. For example, try all up strokes like so: Originally Posted by AllanAllen
Also, you must have a relaxed attitude to play anything fast and accurately, tension is the enemy of accuracy, so play the entire 4 bars in a relaxed manner - the need for relaxation is just more obvious when it comes to sweep picking.
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Here is my version of the first 8? bars. I am alternating picking the triplet.
Moose First 8 Bars? - YouTube
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The more I work on this the worse it’s sounding.
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Tbh I often feel this way about my playing Originally Posted by AllanAllen
I tell myself it’s down to my ears getting better
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So it’s always going to be this way? Great. Originally Posted by Christian Miller
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Sounded fine to me. I omit the last G personally. Originally Posted by AllanAllen
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This is also very true. Originally Posted by CliffR
I like to mix subdivisions some. Jack Zuckers book is great if you’re looking for technical studies on that stuff. He tends to group things rhythmically — meaning a five-note ninth chord arpeggio will be a quintuplet, a three note triad will often be a triplet etc — and I’ve gotten a lot of benefit from playing his exercises with different subdivisions. So the ninth chord becomes triplets or eighths or whatever.
really forces you to control those swept passages a lot more
In general, I prefer to work this stuff out on licks I transcribe, but Jack’s book has a lot of really great stuff for when I’ve isolated something that’s giving me a little trouble technically.
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What’s Jack’s book again? He’s got a part on sweeps?
also, I’m playing the first 8 bars along to this at 55% speed. Progress. I also figured out the 3rd phrase is Db Bb C. Maybe someone told me that but I didn’t grasp it until playing along with Barry.
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Sheets of Sound for Guitar. I'm sure there are a gazillion threads on here dissecting it. It was the hot ticket in 2010 or so. Originally Posted by AllanAllen
Amazon.com
Conceptually it's an approach to playing in that Coltrane-y cascading sheets of sound way. So not really the bebop or swing sort of thing. But there are a lot of techniques he's exploring there that are great for access to some stuff that lies great on a saxophone but can be a real puzzle on guitar.
In practice, it's basically a huge compendium of exercises organized in a way he found useful. There's a second volume that's more like transcribed lines and lines "in the style of" and it's quite cool too. But this one really feels more like it's Jack's practice notebook, very well formatted and organized. It's one of those things that I've dipped into on and off for fifteen years and always found really useful. I'll be working on a transcription and find myself beating my head against the wall on some passage or another, then I'll dig around in that book for a four-bar something that organizes the picking in an efficient way and I'll play it for a while as a warmup to get my picking up to par. Then I might not touch it for three months. Then I'm back next time I hit some other technical challenge that trips me up.
Not something to get if you're looking for a method book, but really great to have for when you find yourself wanting a succinct technical etude that you can shed as a warmup for a few weeks to get better at that kind of playing. Super useful to have in the ole library when need arises.
Bat signal to Jack for comment (this forum really needs a tag function -- or maybe it doesn't)
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Jack has a lot of videos on YouTube, here is one of him sweep picking: Originally Posted by AllanAllen
Legato + swept/economy picked melodic minor arpeggios over Alt chords - YouTube
If you watch his right hand, you'll see that he picks with a relaxed motion from the forearm and wrist, and his hand position stays level with the strings while sweep picking up or down across them. I've found that this relaxed economy of motion is the key to success in sweep picking.
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Yes. The better we get, the more we suck. Fortunately, audiences experience the music very differently from players. Originally Posted by AllanAllen
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I'd hoped to get it a bit more refined than this, but I didn't want to arrive at the party after it had finished, so here we are. Just the first eight bars.
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The video is not available to me Originally Posted by CliffR
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I posted the link before I made it public. Can you still not see it? Originally Posted by garybaldy
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I can now, thanks Originally Posted by CliffR
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First 8 bars with my pc metronome at 164 bpm, played entirely at the 3rd fret position.
Moose the Mooche, 1st 8 bars - Box.com
I would suggest that people practice playing this with a metronome because there's a tendency to vary one's tempo, i.e., slow down on the harder phrases. Set your metronome at the fastest speed at which you can play this head with the correct rhythms. In my opinion, when it comes to bebop, it's better to be sloppy with the notes than with the rhythms, of course we'd prefer to be neither but that's not always possible.
Last edited by Mick-7; 03-22-2026 at 05:55 AM.
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I'm not sure what that means? Originally Posted by James W
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I don’t think they necessarily need to be picked at all
They are kind of ‘throw away notes’.
Guitarists tend to be a bit binary on/off other articulation. Horns aren’t like that, and nowhere is this clearer than in the OG recording of Moose the Mooche
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You mean the triplet can be hammered-on from nowhere (i.e left hand tapped)? Originally Posted by Christian Miller
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It's simple - at least, for sweep-picking it is simple. If you want to sweep (physically) down i.e to the ground you will slant the plectrum so that the part of it you're gripping will point down to the ground whilst the part making contact with the strings will point upwards. Obviously vice versa for sweeping up. Originally Posted by Mick-7
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Yeah. Originally Posted by James W
I find this easier in fingerings where the hammered notes go across the strings, one note per string fingerings. But I suppose that’s where sweeping becomes a consideration anyway.
It depends. I don’t think this about not being able to pick them. But more, do I want to pick them? Although this approach means I can play the head using my thumb which is nice.
Metheny uses hammer ons on this way a lot BTW, it’s part of his sound. There’s probably other guitarists too.
That said sweeping arpeggios of this kind is also a natural part of jazz guitar. People have been doing it long before some pointy guitar guys at GIT decided to give it a name… I think it happens naturally if you approach the music by ear. It’s very natural to the guitar, but then so is hammering…
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