Hall, sweeping. No broom.

I watched a YouTube vid featuring the great John Hall . The link is for your convenience but it isn’t important to watch right now. I learned something, but not where one might expect.

This is Jim Hall Master Class part 1, as a basic intro to jazz improv for the unschooled blues rock guitarist fluent in minor pentatonics. The "lesson" is framed as a conversation between Hall and his friend/prodigy Satoshi Inue.  Some of it extremely basic  (for example showing the viewer to play near the bridge for a brighter sound or closer to the neck for a darker sound) but along the way the master drops a few bits of wisdom that bear recollection, such as his admonition to listen and copy from great players but “transcribe the feel, not the notes”.

I didn't connect with much of the music played here, but struck gold in the almost passing mention of sweep picking which starts just before 24:00. After all I’ve read and seen about sweep picking, this brief casual example finally flipped on a switch in my head and sweep picking began to make sense.

"Sweep picking" had seemed like just another word for strumming, but my understanding grew considerably here. As I see it, sweep picking's intention is make the most efficient use of the right hand. Less unnecessary pick motion means less work for the right hand, which in turn allows more relaxation and/ or greater speed. I have no desire to be a speed metal guy but greater efficiency can only be good.  I can increase my chill factor!  I like chill factor. By this age chill factor may even be my favorite thing.

Here is a very elementary example: the first notes of "Good Night, Ladies" in open G. An open "B" note 2nd string, a open "G" on the 3rd, , and open "D" on the 4th, all on strong beats.  Due to lifelong habit I would probably downstroke the 2nd string then move the pick in an arc through the air to sound the 3rd string with another downstroke, and repeat for the D note.  Sweep picking would have me prepare with the pick between 1st & 2nd strings then play all three of the opening notes with one measured upstroke, saving all the extra wasted motion of moving up & over, with the benefit of  playing each subsequent note for less than half the effort.


Just after minute 24 Hall demonstrates proficiency at sweep picking combined with his eloquent hammer on and pull off techniques to such an extent that the guitar plays long, fluid, beautiful lines but his right hand is doing very little. I'm diggin' the chill factor.

So, I set about to make some of Jim Hall's chill factor my own. Look out jazz daddy, I'm in yur videoz jackin' yur chill.  As well as employing sweep picking in my regular playing gradually, I have also reintroduced scale practice to my daily routine in an effort to, as I said in a Facebook post, “make sweep picking part of my metabolism”. During scale practice If a note sounded perfectly but I played it with the wrong type of pick stroke, it was wrong. I start over.

Through years of habit I would use downstroke for strong/accented notes and let a weaker upstrokes handle less important notes. A sweep picker must be able to play a strong or weak note with any required level of accentuation, employing either type of stroke, depending on where the pick lies beforehand.  Don't let "down, up, down, up, down, up ... " be your automatic pick-handling plan any more.  Hit your next note from wherever you are, a sorta "play the ball where it lies".

I also found myself playing notes way too soon – a sorta “premature twanging”. In the example given above, I used to move my hand all the way around to the other side of the string before sounding a note, but now with sweep picking I've eliminated that deadhead motion. It takes less time to hit something from this side instead having to walk all the way around to that side, yet habit tells my hand it needs to hustle, so I'd rush into the upstroke and sound the note too soon. My first challenge in sweep picking was to use the upstroke. My second challenge was to chill enough to stay in time.

As time goes on I find more things that are changed when sweep picking. When a melody line descends we often move “up” to the next string, and now that also means using upstroke. So - when the melody goes down the upstrokes get busy - count on it.  It isn't all about the upstroke, either. Any time you move to a smaller string, use downstroke, regardless of where the beat is. 

Is sweep picking helping me? Yes.

It did make me back up and retouch some foundational things. Ever hear the A-clam major scale? At first I felt like I had shitcanned about 30 years of proficiency. My performance wasn't suffering, but it made me feel like an idiot when I tried to sound a major scale with this new stuff to think about. 

More importantly it hasn't taken long for me to notice that some previously challenging things are coming more easily. It's feeling good already an' its only gonna get better!

Grillin’ the chillin’;