Marshall Harrison is one of the most original technical voices in contemporary guitar, and this masterclass is a rare chance to hear him break down the thinking behind SWYBRYD picking — a technique that genuinely opens up new possibilities for anyone who has ever found sweep picking or legato limiting. This was recorded live as part of a masterclass weekend featuring Allen Hinds, Andy Timmons, Jens Larsen, John Stowell and more.
What you’ll get out of this lesson
An in-depth understanding of what SWYBRYD picking is, where it came from, and how Marshall applies it to arpeggios in a way that borrows directly from classical piano technique. You’ll come away with concrete ideas to take to your own practise.
What SWYBRYD picking actually is
SWYBRYD is a portmanteau of sweeping and hybrid picking. The key insight is that combining them creates something more than just the sum of the parts — there’s a real synergy. As Marshall explains, the technique emerged almost by accident when he was trying to play a lick from the movie Crossroads, where Steve Vai plays over an E major triad with an open E string in between. He was faking it with pure sweep picking until one day he instinctively plucked a finger into the middle of the sweep — and found he could play the passage faster and cleaner than ever before. That moment of discovery became the foundation of the whole system.
“I just noticed if I pluck my finger in there, I don’t know why, I just tried to do it. One day I just started plucking my finger in there once. And I was like, ‘Holy bleep.’ I mean, I can really play it way faster and it’s perfectly clean.”
Why it solves a fundamental guitar problem
Marshall identifies string-crossing as the single biggest technical hurdle in fast picking. Every time a pick has to jump across a string rather than rolling along with a sweep, there’s an opportunity for a mistake or a loss of cleanness. SWYBRYD solves this by substituting a right-hand finger pluck for those cross-string movements. The example he gives in the session is Van Halen-style sixes — instead of jumping across with the pick on the string change, you pluck with the middle finger and the difficulty largely disappears. The same principle applies to Paul Gilbert-style fours licks and many other standard vocabulary items.
Applying it to arpeggios in octaves
The main focus of this session is arpeggios. Marshall points out that traditional arpeggio playing on guitar is limited: you’re either sweeping straight down and up, or attempting alternate picking, which he says he wouldn’t advise unless you’re Steve Morse. SWYBRYD changes that by letting you divide large arpeggios into their constituent octaves — the way a pianist naturally thinks about them. For a C major arpeggio, instead of one continuous sweep, you work in two-string octave units using a combination of pick and middle/ring finger plucks. This lets you vary the internal voicing of the arpeggio as you go — moving from a fourth in the lower octave to a major third in the middle octave to a second on top, producing a shifting, classical quality that a flat sweep simply can’t achieve.
Background and influences
Marshall came to guitar from an engineering background, switched to music school at GIT, and cites classical piano as a major influence on how he thinks about the instrument. His private instructor at GIT was Brett Garsed, whose impact was so significant that Marshall says he would have driven 1,500 miles back home if Garsed’s schedule had been full. That combination of rock, fusion, jazz, and classical piano vocabulary informs the system he teaches today through his SWYBRYD Nation platform.
To find out more about Marshall Harrison, go to https://www.swybryd-nation.com/
Taking it further
Marshall notes that sweeping is still his first resort 99% of the time. SWYBRYD comes into play when a sweep arrangement isn’t working — either because of string-crossing issues or because he wants the greater flexibility of the octave-based approach. Start by identifying one lick in your current vocabulary where you find the string-crossing difficult, and try rearranging just that single moment to use a finger pluck instead of a pick cross. Build from there.
Your homework
Take a simple major arpeggio in one position and practise playing it in two-string octave units using pick on the lower string and middle finger pluck on the upper string of each pair. Keep it slow and clean. Once you can move through the arpeggio shape without rushing, try varying the interval on the top note as Marshall demonstrates — moving from a fourth to a third to a second across the octaves.