Sweep/Economy-Picking – Intro

Sweep and economy picking are usually treated as different techniques, but I prefer to group them together. I find sweeping is just an extension of basic economy-picking.

For the uninitiated, economy-picking simply means that you play any consecutive strings in the same direction.

For example, if you play a G on the 6th string followed by a B on the 5th string, you would play both with a sinlgle downstroke. As opposed to alternate picking, where you would play the first with a downstroke and the second with an upstroke:

Economy-Picking example

The tricky part is to keep the rhythm steady while doing this. It’s very easy to make everything sound lopsided if you’re not careful.

The best thing to do, as usual, is to start out very slowly with a metronome and make sure that you’re hitting each note accurately. This is why I recommend to get really good at alternate-picking before moving on to this.

Here’s a simple exercise to get you started. Play this slowly and with a steady rhythm.

economy-picking exercise