[neo classical sweeping guitar shred]
Jack here jbf music and guitar lessons, in this quick guitar tricks we’re looking at
Yngwie J. Malmsteen’s sweeping, specifically his 3 string sweep picked arpeggios.
The basic idea; as you may have gathered; is to play an arpeggio, I’ve gone with this
C major; because it’s one of the easier ones to start with; and playing it Down, Down,
Down, Up, Pull off, Up. We get a nice little triplet group of 6, so we can repeat that.
Yngwie’s 3 string sweep!
Ok, but how does Yngwie Malmteen actually do this? Fair point, so now I’ll explain
the technique then, go on to explore his most common arpeggios, some other inversions how
to use them, other picking versions and any bonus tips that spring to mind. If you want
a much more in depth look at several areas of Yngwie’s playing, check out my Pro Tips
video tutorial card up there.
In terms of the picking mechanics, I’m downward pick slanting for the first 3 strokes, then
switching to upward pick slanting, pull off, upward slant, but as soon as I’m finished
with that last note, right back to downward slanting. Yngiwe might do this as all downward;
you might be able to do that as well, if I try it I hit a wall pretty quickly, because
I’m having to do this sort of jerky movement between the e and B string; where I leave
the strings, then have to go back to; which just feels odd and slows me down, you can
hear there it was pretty messy. Eh, If you do downward pick slant all the way from time
to time you might end up hammering this note on the B string, rather than picking it; which
is totally legit; but something we’ll touch on a bit later on. A pre-emptive bonus trick
of sorts! Yeah on a side note, my fingers seem to help out the pick slant switch here,
might not work for everyone, but uh... I'm using the knuckle of my finger to help angle
the pick, some of the time anyway.
So before I get rage comments Yngwie will often start this pattern on the 1st upstroke,
like this. Exactly the same as we did before, only starting on a different note. To me starting
on the downward sweep seems easier to follow and get the hang of, so that’s why I opted
to teach it that way. And on that note I’m going for a bonus tip. You can play this arpeggio
starting on any of these notes. So let’s go back to the first way I showed you, then
just go through all six ways you can play it using this idea. The 1st way, which we
already know starting on the next note, so here it’s
Down, down, up, pull off, up, down. Starting on the next note we get; down, up, pull off,
up, down, down. Then we get the textbook Yngwie one: up, pull off, up, down, down, down . Then,
Hmm ok starting with a pull off, is a bit odd; so the first time round let’s just
hammer the note from nowhere . Then we can pull off to it on every repeat. Hammer, up,
down, down, down up and if we were to repeat an loop it: Hammer, up, down, down, down,
up, pull off, up, down, down, down, up. And finally; up, down, down, down, up, pull off.
This is just to show you that with one picking mechanic you’ve really got 6 ways of playing
the same arpeggio; which becomes much more relevant when you start adding in new shapes
or chords. So, on that note, let’s look at 3 string arpeggio shapes for the most commonly
used chords.
First up, G major in root position going G, B, D, G, D, B ,G. and again.. 1st inversion
starts on the B same notes different order; B, D, G, B , G, D, B. 2nd inversion up here:
D, G, B, D ,B ,G, D. Cool, let’s do the same for E minor; to keep it all in the same
key. E, G, B, E, B, G ,E. 1st inversion G, B, E, G, E, B, G. So with this one, you might
want to keep your finger flat and roll it, or use more of the side, sort of knuckle of
your finger; in all honestly I never really like rolling my finger like this and to tend
to avoid it if I can; in this case I’d probably use a bit of light palm muting to help tidy
things up a bit; light palm muting a bonus trick there! And 2nd inversion B, E, G, B,
G, E, B. Probably my favourite sweep shape there. Diminished and diminished 7th sweeps
are the only other major and minor that spring to mind; which you can use in place of a Dominant
7 and Dominant 7 b9 respectively.
Fully diminished first up: F#, A, C, D#, C, A. and this shape just inverts into itself,
so same shape but the notes change order, just like before so 1st inversion: A,C,D#,F#,C,D
up 3 semi tones to the 2nd inversion; C,D#,F#,A,F#,D#. And since we have 4 different notes: root,
b3, b5 and bb7, we also get a third inversion; D#, F#, A, C, A, F#. And if we try to go higher,
if you’ve got enough frets you’ll reach an F#; so just the same as before, but an
octave up.
Cool, so a diminished triad, the first two of these shapes aren’t that commonly used,
but it’s worth showing them none the less. Being a triad we only get 3 note values; F#,
A, C. The shape goes like this; F#, A, C, F#, C, A . Bit of a stretch, as a bonus tip,
you can always tap that note if you preffer. 1st inversion A, C, F#, A, F#, C, . And 2nd
inversion, a bit more of a common shape: C, F#, A, C, A, F#. So just as a reminder you
can start any of these on a different note; just like I did with the major arpeggio; but
I’ll leave trying that out up to yourselves! Next up, let’s look at how we can use this
to follow a chord progression. I’m going to be using a section from my Yngwie style
backing track in E, link up in the corner; which accompanies my Pro Tips tutorial; specifically
the chord progression: Em, F Diminished, D, G, C, A7, D, B7. So with that in mind I’m
going to start with E minor root poisiton. As a bonus trick I’m varying the sweep here,
just using 1 note per string going: down, down, down; this should work well with an
all downward pick slanting approach. For the F diminished, I’ll stick to root position,
only 3 notes so just like this . D again I’m going to go with root position, then G, why
not root position one last time, so I’ll need to go up here. C, I’m going to go with
the 2nd inversion. A7, we can use one of the diminished shapes here and A7 is A, C#, E,
G, so a C# diminished triad being, C#, E, G, will work. I’m going to go with the 2nd
inversion G, C#, E, G, E, C# . We’ve got the same idea a tone higher, going D to B7,
so let take those last two ideas and bump them up a tone. This for D and this for B7
Again B7 is B,D,F#,A a D# diminished triad is D#,F,A; so it will fit in nicely.
Now that is maybe a bit stock, so let’s look at changing things up for the repeat,
I’ll go with Yngwie’s preferred pattern and start on the 2nd inversion for e minor
. I don’t want to jump around the fretboard too much, so let’s play the F# diminished
in 2nd inversion here . D 2nd inversion here . Hmm, 1st inversion for G seems to make sense
. Root position for C .
Root position for the C# diminished . Root position for D , then I’m going to
imply a Bdom7 b9, by throwing in a fully diminished D#, in root position .
The theory here is a bit of a tangent, but I have covered it in my Yngwie Pro tips lesson.
Anyway, here’s what that sounds like and the whole thing
Ok, finally here are some variations you might want to try in terms of the picking, not the
Malmsteen method; as far as I’m aware, but still worth knowing or trying out. We can
pick every note, I’d opt for Down, down, down, up, down, up You could make the first
note on the repeat an Up; I find that bit less natural. As a bonus you could just play
it all legato! Or to mix these ideas, try hammering on the note on the B string on the
way back down: down, down, down, up, pull off, hammer from nowhere . This one rolls
better for me, if I just go down, down, down, hammer, pull, off hammer form nowhere . In
fact, that’s probably what I’d end up doing live if I had to play this at a fast
speed. You could also double up a note to change the rhythm: down, down, down, hammer,
pull off, up, up. And of course there are a tonne more variations you can try out. So,
why on earth am I talking about all of these an encouraging them and going on about all
this other stuff in an Yngwie lesson? Well firstly, so it’s a more useful and well-rounded
lesson; that you can apply to other areas, secondly his technique might not click with
you; but one of these other approaches, or your own might be really intuitive, sound
and play better. If that is the case I’d just go with it. As someone who spent a lot
of time studying other player’s technique I would say you can run the risk of wasting
a lot of time if you get too hung up on playing it the exact same way as them. By all means
it’s great to study players, learn good technique and cool new ideas, like this Yngwie’s
sweep. But, having said that if you can produce pretty much the same sounding sweep with much
less time spent on the mechanics behind it, seem like the wiser path; well to me anyway!
Cool, so that was a rough Guide to Yngwie J. Malmsteen's three string swept arpeggios;
this can been quick tricks, that's the playlist up there. Check out some of the other stuff
I've done, leave a like and a comment if you want to and also share and enable notification
with that little bell on the side, if you feel so inclined. Cheers guys.