Hey there all! I just wanted to quickly put up a post on my new website. I have started a website based around sweep picking! I just wanted to let you all know so that you can go check it out!
There is some lessons already posted in the blog, with many more to come!
So please anyone and everyone who is interested in sweep picking go and check out www.sweeppickinghq.com!
See you all there,
Sam
Monday, February 27, 2012
Thursday, February 23, 2012
Choosing the Right Thickness of Pick
Hi there everyone and welcome back to Shred Steps! Thank you again for stopping by to check out some great tips and tricks on guitar playing. Today I want to discuss choosing the right thickness of guitar pick. This may seem a little introductory to some but this is a huge topic and once I settled on the picks that I play now, it made my guitar playing skyrocket.
So lets start! I know for most beginning guitar players, they choose a very thin pick. I know this because I did the same thing and I played with one for many years. But I want to show you why this is the wrong choice when tackling lead guitar.
The reason you see electric players playing with heavy picks is because the pick does not bend around the string unlike a thin pick. If your pick bends around the string, once you start to play fast you will lose a lot of your picking momentum. This turns into very sloppy playing very soon. If you are using a heavy pick the string moves around your pick allowing for more attack, and in turn faster cleaner playing. Now by attack, when play electric guitar, you are able to really dig into the strings with a heavy pick and get a stronger sounding note making for great dynamics. If you were to dig into the guitar using a thin pick it is likely that your pick with snap, and yes I have personally done this several times.
I want to say that I don't think thin picks are useless, quite the opposite really, I feel their best use is for acoustic strumming. Nothing sounds better on an acoustic then a thin pick. When I'm out playing acoustic I absolutely have a thin pick on hand. But that's only for rhythmic strumming, when it comes time for lead out comes the Jazz III
Lets take a look at this in the terms of sweep picking. Well in sweep picking you want your pick to go in a fluid motion up and down the strings, you want nothing slowing down your pick when you are doing this technique. If the pick is bending on the strings, this is going to slow you down and you are going to sound sloppy, we don't that. With a heavy pick you get what I call "play through", the strings move for your pick allowing you to "play though" the strings. This is extremely important for making each note ring when sweeping arppeggios or passing tones. I make it a point to show anyone who wants to sweep, or who just wants to play lead in general, to use the right pick.
This has been many, many years now since I have been using heavy picks, but what I can tell is that I do remember a bit of a learning curve, I know for me I dropped my pick a lot more often when switching to a heavy pick, and this still happens all of the time. I also set out on a wild hunt for the right pick, I can honestly tell you that I have spent hundreds of dollars trying to find the right pick, I have even gone as far as spending $35 on ONE PICK! But no matter what I try I always come back to the old Jazz III. (I am also famous for losing or breaking my picks, I just recently ran over a twenty five dollar pick and it shattered, so now I use whats economical lol.) But I do want to just say here that V-Picks is one of my favorites (and no that is not an affiliate link, I get no money from V-Picks, I just love their products). Their picks really are sticky like they say on their website and I barely drop these ones in comparison to my Jazz III's
Lets wrap this up, go out and buy you some heavy picks, whether or not you want small ones like the Jazz III
Until next time everyone,
Cheers
Sammy Jo
Note: The links with the * beside them are affiliate links and I do get a commission off if the sale if you decide to purchase. Thanks in advanced!
Family budgeting
Friday, February 17, 2012
Start Right with the Pentatonic Scale!
Let me start this off by saying that I dearly love the pentatonic scale. Any guitar player that has some experience behind the neck of a guitar that has heard me play will tell you this. I am a huge Zakk Wylde fan so pentatonic riffs and killer squeals are my game! With that said I cant tell you how amazing these scales are for completely opening up the neck.
These need to be practiced every single time you pick up a guitar and if you are new to them they are going to seem strange because they dont sound like the normal major scale. Thats because you are missing a lot of the notes out of the major or minor scale when making up the pentatonic scale. Hence the penta, its five glorious notes, that when played right can make you riff like no ones business.
The minor pentatonic scale, which you hear most guitar players playing, is made up of the 1, 3, 4, 5, and 7 of the natural minor scale. Now I am not going into much theory hear, but if you know how to make up a scale then that will make sense to you. I will save the theory discussion for a later date.
This is the pentatonic scale all laid out nice and neat for you. This is what is going to start really opening the neck is all positions. If practiced and completely gotten down underneath the fingers, this will open up so many possibilities that you wont believe.
I recommend of course practicing these at a nice slow pace, setting the metronome to 60 bpm, and playing quarter notes, until every note rings completely perfect, up and down the neck. Then once it is perfect you can speed it up by three bpm. Go until it is perfect, every note ringing clear, then speed it up again, and again, and again. You get the picture here, slow practice is the key to success in guitar, and the key to speed!
The next step I want you to take is start learning some blues rock solos, anything by ZZ Top is a great start. Or even Black Sabbath, Tony Iommi has done wonderful things with the pentatonic scale! Learning some solos will open you up to the possibilities of this scale.
Now go pick up that guitar, start plunking away at these scales and really get them under your fingertips. If you are wanting to learn how to solo on the guitar this really is the best place to start. Again learning this will open the whole neck for you. I am looking forward to any comments or questions, I will answer anything that is asked, unless of course it is derogative or spammy.
Thanks for checking out my blog, and until next time!
Cheers,
Sammy Jo
These need to be practiced every single time you pick up a guitar and if you are new to them they are going to seem strange because they dont sound like the normal major scale. Thats because you are missing a lot of the notes out of the major or minor scale when making up the pentatonic scale. Hence the penta, its five glorious notes, that when played right can make you riff like no ones business.
The minor pentatonic scale, which you hear most guitar players playing, is made up of the 1, 3, 4, 5, and 7 of the natural minor scale. Now I am not going into much theory hear, but if you know how to make up a scale then that will make sense to you. I will save the theory discussion for a later date.
I recommend of course practicing these at a nice slow pace, setting the metronome to 60 bpm, and playing quarter notes, until every note rings completely perfect, up and down the neck. Then once it is perfect you can speed it up by three bpm. Go until it is perfect, every note ringing clear, then speed it up again, and again, and again. You get the picture here, slow practice is the key to success in guitar, and the key to speed!
The next step I want you to take is start learning some blues rock solos, anything by ZZ Top is a great start. Or even Black Sabbath, Tony Iommi has done wonderful things with the pentatonic scale! Learning some solos will open you up to the possibilities of this scale.
Now go pick up that guitar, start plunking away at these scales and really get them under your fingertips. If you are wanting to learn how to solo on the guitar this really is the best place to start. Again learning this will open the whole neck for you. I am looking forward to any comments or questions, I will answer anything that is asked, unless of course it is derogative or spammy.
Thanks for checking out my blog, and until next time!
Cheers,
Sammy Jo
Thursday, February 16, 2012
Quick Tips for Sweep Picking
Lets start off this one for Bryce who specifically asked me on some tips for sweep picking. He also asked for a video but I have a lot to learn about video editing before I get there so we will start off here. Thanks for the request buddy!
Let me start out by describing sweep picking. Sweep picking is a technique on the guitar that allows you to play chords one note at a time. With a lot of practice it can be the fastest way for a person to play, but it takes a lot of time patience and discipline to get this down, and to make it not sound sloppy! What you do is a consecutive motion of down strokes from string to string playing one note at a time. You in turn can do consecutive upstrokes on the same or a different chord shape. You will "sweep" up and down the strings hence the name.
Lets start sweeping! First and foremost, and this is the absolute most important thing about sweeping in my opinion. You must keep your pick perfectly flat! By flat I mean that it needs to be parallel to the floor. I cant honestly tell you how many times I have seen kids trying to sweep and their pick is all over the place, bending up and down, this doesn't work and needs to be stopped.
For me I also only use the tip of the pick, I am talking about less than an eighth of an inch, (I also use this in my alternate picking, but we will get to that in a later post,) this allows for less of the pick to get in the way of the strings. Go in a smooth motion up and down the strings making sure to keep the pick perfectly flat!
To start though you definitely need to go slow, and I personally recommend starting off with a three string sweep. I am sure most of you are familiar with an open D chord, use this shape and move it up and down the neck. This is a great exercise to get you started with sweep picking. You can also alternate between a D major shape and a D minor shape, just to get your fingers used to two very common chord shapes. When I say slow I mean slow start off with a metronome at 60 bpm and do quarter notes, thats right one not per beat, one note at a time, until it is perfect, and then slowly increase the metronome by three bpm, making sure that your technique is prefect. Slowly start to build speed, and when comfortable slowly start to add strings.
This is just a quick guide to starting sweeping, there is so much more that you can add with your practice and I want to recommend a book to you all. You NEED to pick up the Guitar Grimoire series. Specifically the arpeggio book for sweeping. This will show you all the possible arpeggios on the neck and will open you up to an unlimited amount of exercises up and down the neck!
Thanks for checking in all I hope that I have helped and please ask any questions in my comments and I will definitely get back to you in a timely manner!
Cheers,
Sammy Jo
Let me start out by describing sweep picking. Sweep picking is a technique on the guitar that allows you to play chords one note at a time. With a lot of practice it can be the fastest way for a person to play, but it takes a lot of time patience and discipline to get this down, and to make it not sound sloppy! What you do is a consecutive motion of down strokes from string to string playing one note at a time. You in turn can do consecutive upstrokes on the same or a different chord shape. You will "sweep" up and down the strings hence the name.
Lets start sweeping! First and foremost, and this is the absolute most important thing about sweeping in my opinion. You must keep your pick perfectly flat! By flat I mean that it needs to be parallel to the floor. I cant honestly tell you how many times I have seen kids trying to sweep and their pick is all over the place, bending up and down, this doesn't work and needs to be stopped.
For me I also only use the tip of the pick, I am talking about less than an eighth of an inch, (I also use this in my alternate picking, but we will get to that in a later post,) this allows for less of the pick to get in the way of the strings. Go in a smooth motion up and down the strings making sure to keep the pick perfectly flat!
To start though you definitely need to go slow, and I personally recommend starting off with a three string sweep. I am sure most of you are familiar with an open D chord, use this shape and move it up and down the neck. This is a great exercise to get you started with sweep picking. You can also alternate between a D major shape and a D minor shape, just to get your fingers used to two very common chord shapes. When I say slow I mean slow start off with a metronome at 60 bpm and do quarter notes, thats right one not per beat, one note at a time, until it is perfect, and then slowly increase the metronome by three bpm, making sure that your technique is prefect. Slowly start to build speed, and when comfortable slowly start to add strings.
This is just a quick guide to starting sweeping, there is so much more that you can add with your practice and I want to recommend a book to you all. You NEED to pick up the Guitar Grimoire series. Specifically the arpeggio book for sweeping. This will show you all the possible arpeggios on the neck and will open you up to an unlimited amount of exercises up and down the neck!
Thanks for checking in all I hope that I have helped and please ask any questions in my comments and I will definitely get back to you in a timely manner!
Cheers,
Sammy Jo
Tuesday, February 14, 2012
Welcome!
Hi there everyone! My name is Sam, some of you are sure to know me I would hope. Others not so much but hopefully you will all stick around and get to know me! I am going to be posting on this blog about my love and passion for guitar!
A little background info on my guitar passion here, I have been playing for about fifteen years now. My parents started me out when I was only eight years old. I have been going bonkers with it ever sense. I have had quite the collection of guitars over the years but my prized possession would have to be my John Petrucci Ernie Ball Music Man Signature guitar, autographed by the man himself. I will definitely post pictures of that and some pictures of me meeting him! I am currently the lead guitar player at Crossroads Church in Loveland CO, so if you are ever in Loveland please come by and listen to us I guaranty you that we wont disappoint!
So needless to say Dream Theater is a big influence for me and my playing but I have so many different players that I love and attempt to emulate. They go from Steve Vai to Brad Paisley all the way over to Zakk Wylde. Love them all! More on these to come...
My purpose of this blog is to bring you all my info on the wonderful instrument, as well as just my thoughts and ideas of brands I love and play, to brands that I wont even touch just because I am stubborn. I am wanting to bring informative lessons on ways to getting started with leads, to just some simple tips and tricks on helping you play faster. I feel that we can have a lot of fun together and I am very much looking forward to any questions or comments that anyone may have. I will try my hardest to answer any and all questions and comments to help those people out so please feel free to hit me up!
Thanks for stopping by,
Cheers,
Sammy Jo
A little background info on my guitar passion here, I have been playing for about fifteen years now. My parents started me out when I was only eight years old. I have been going bonkers with it ever sense. I have had quite the collection of guitars over the years but my prized possession would have to be my John Petrucci Ernie Ball Music Man Signature guitar, autographed by the man himself. I will definitely post pictures of that and some pictures of me meeting him! I am currently the lead guitar player at Crossroads Church in Loveland CO, so if you are ever in Loveland please come by and listen to us I guaranty you that we wont disappoint!
So needless to say Dream Theater is a big influence for me and my playing but I have so many different players that I love and attempt to emulate. They go from Steve Vai to Brad Paisley all the way over to Zakk Wylde. Love them all! More on these to come...
My purpose of this blog is to bring you all my info on the wonderful instrument, as well as just my thoughts and ideas of brands I love and play, to brands that I wont even touch just because I am stubborn. I am wanting to bring informative lessons on ways to getting started with leads, to just some simple tips and tricks on helping you play faster. I feel that we can have a lot of fun together and I am very much looking forward to any questions or comments that anyone may have. I will try my hardest to answer any and all questions and comments to help those people out so please feel free to hit me up!
Cheers,
Sammy Jo
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