Muse's New Born is famous for that ominous piano intro, and then Matt Bellamy kicks the door in with a riff that sounds like a church organ that started lifting weights. Here's the dirty secret: strip away the fuzz and the drama, and the whole thing is basically arpeggios politely rolling across the strings. Which makes it the perfect victim for a sweep picking exercise.
So that's what I did. I took the New Born riff, reframed it as a sweep drill, and leaned hard on open strings so your fretting hand gets a coffee break while your pick learns to glide. Eighteen seconds of clip, a lifetime of "wait, why does mine sound like a blender?" Welcome.
How this open-string sweep works
Sweeping isn't strumming fast — it's one continuous pick motion dragging across the strings, letting the arpeggio ring like a single unbroken gesture. The trap is that all the notes bleed into a chord instead of separating. That's where the open strings earn their keep: they act as free, ringing anchor notes so your fretting hand can jump position without panicking, and they force you to concentrate on the real skill — synchronising the pick's downward glide with your fingers landing and lifting one at a time. Practise it insanely slowly, one clean note per string, muting as you go, before you let it turn into the Bellamy blur.
Concrete takeaway: if it sounds like mush, you're picking too fast and muting too little. Slow the sweep until you can hear each individual note, and only then chase speed. If you're brand new to this, my Sweep Picking Basics lays the groundwork, and if you want the full Muse fuzz-bomb experience, go poke at Plug In Baby next.
And if your first ten attempts sound less like New Born and more like a robot being newly born, congratulations — that's exactly where everyone starts. Come suffer beautifully with the rest of us (with tabs and Guitar Pro files) over on Patreon.