TRAVIS PICKING … The Most Popular FINGERSTYLE Technique on Guitar
In short, the Travis picking technique is achieved by playing two bass notes with the thumb while the fingers take care of the treble side.
The Travis technique is one of the most popular fingerstyle technique on acoustic guitar. It was popularized by the country legend Merle Travis which used this technique all the time.
I used this technique all the time, especially when I wanted to play bluesy or country stuff, but I didn’t really know that it was called Travis picking.
In this fingerpicking lesson I am going to show you how to use the Travis picking technique over a chord progression in C major.
We are going to follow the Travis rule and alternate the thumb between two bass notes while playing a fingerpicking accompaniment with the fingers.
The Travis picking technique allows you to make simple chords sound amazing and groovy.
In this lesson there are two different chord sections.
Section one, played with C major, A minor, E minor and G major chord.
Section two with C7, F7, F#dim and G7.
The major and minor chords in the first section changes voicing all the time and should be practice separately.
The Travis Picking Technique
Merle Robert Travis was an American country and western guitarist, singer and songwriter born in Rosewood. He died in 1983 after a life spent playing guitar and releasing about 30 albums and inspiring a lot of fingerpicking country and blues guitar players all around the world.
It is his unique fingerpicking style and repertoire that made Travis one of the most popular fingerpicking guitar players of all time.
Merle was obsessed with learning Muhlengerg Country’s unique fingerpicking style at age twelve. This technique involves picking two bass notes of a chord with the thumb while simultaneously playing a lead or accompaniment on the treble strings with the fingers (He mainly only used his index finger).
Travis Picking Technique in This Lesson
Today I am going to write my first idea using Merle technique. I am going to start with the chord progression which will be in the C major key.
This technique is mainly used for playing blues dominant 7 chords but because I am a Pop guy I decided to play basic triads. One of the awesome things about the Travis picking technique is its extremely versatile!
The chord progression goes as follows: C Am Em G7. Each chord will be played with two different voicing.
There are three different sections throughout the video in which I show you step by step how I wrote this guitar part. If you are a beginner, start from step one where I show you the simple bass line before moving on to step two and three.
Good luck!
Merle Travis Influences
Merle’s guitar player style was developed out of a native tradition of fingerpicking in western Kentucky. Guitar players such as Arnold Shultz, Kennery Jones, Mose Rager all had in common the same fingerpicking method in which the thumb pluck two bass notes while the finger play the top strings. This technique creates a solo style that blends lead line picked by finger and rhythmic bass patterns played with the thumb.
Travis Picking Style
Merle Travis in now one of the most influential American guitarists of the 20th century. His unique fingerpicking style inspired so many guitar players after him. One of the most amazing thing about Merle Travis is that even thought some of his tutors were among the first guitar players using the thumb technique, Travis was able to take it a step further.
So many other guitar players have been inspired by his playing. Players such as Scotty Moore, Marcel Dadi, Thom Bresh said that Travis took the fingerpicking style to a whole new level. His music scale incorporated elements from blues, jazz, ragtime and country. The chord progressions have always been marked with rich chords and bluesy chord progressions.
Travis was also extremely versatile and he could easily shift from one style to another within the same song. One of the many guitar players who was inspired by him said “I thought it was just the coolest sound, because it sounded like a whole bunch of instruments coming from one guitar”
I highly recommend you watch how the Travis’ style is explained and exemplified by Marcel Dadi . He made a DVD The Guitar of Merle Travis, which includes live video performances by Travis of classics such as “John Henry” and “Nine Pound Hammer” as well as transcriptions of Travis solos in tablature.[16]
Easy Travis Picking Pattern
One of the cool thing about this beautiful guitar technique is that we can make it very simple and perfectly approachable for beginners. I this section I am going to show you few simple examples that you can practice right now just to get started. If you are a guitar beginner, I am sure you will find this three simple Travis picking patterns very useful.
Travis Picking Basic Exercise 1
In this first example I am going to show you a very simple way to implement the picking thumb basic pattern over two simple chords, the C major and G major chord.
Notice how for the G major chord the thumb has to skip the A string and jump from the low E string to the D string.
You should always keep the thumb relaxed and close to the strings. Pluck the strings using the big knuckle from the thumb. If you want, you could also rest the index, middle and ring finger on the strings.
IMPORTANT: The thumb will only pluck the bass notes. For the C major pluck the A and D string with the thumb while playing the B and E string with index and middle finger. For the G major chord, the thumb will play the low E and D string.
Travis Picking Exercise 2
Let’s spice things up a little bit and try a Travis picking pattern that is played on three bass notes rather than two. This is another thing Merle Travis used to do a lot and there are a lot of his folk songs using this technique.
Now that the thumb plays on three strings things get a little bit more difficult for beginners. Take things step by step and play the exercise slowly.
Hey guys in this fingerpicking lesson I am going to show you one of the most awesome way to practice scales on acoustic guitar.
The secret is to really create a musical idea you really look forward practicing and playing. The more musical the scale sounds the more you will want to practice it!
Scales are a really important aspect of your daily routine. If you practice scales correctly, there is no doubt your technique will improve drastically!
So here you have it!
Check this awesome way to practice scales on guitar.
A scale is a progression of note arranged in ascending order. The notes, also called pitches span an octave.
One of the first thing you should learn when start practicing scales on guitar is the half and whole steps pattern that build the scale. By learning the scale’s interval you will be able to understand, transpose and learn all the major scale in any key.
You will find scales on guitar to be a little bit challenging to play at the beginning. It is true that with an instrument such as the piano it is easier to learn the notes of the scale as we can visualize the notes on they key. With the guitar is a little bit more challenging.
In this Fingerpicking Lesson
Today we are going to learn how to play the E major scale in three different ways.
Up and down the neck.
On one string
With a technique called “Pedal tone”.
Notice that the exercise sounds really musical so it should be fun to learn and practice.
Scales up and Down the Neck
In the first example I am going to show you how to play scales on guitar up and down the neck.
In this particular exercise the E major scale is played in five different boxes and different fingerings in a descending order. The speed in BPM is 100.
Let me show you the E major scale played throughout the entire neck. You can easily realize how many patterns and boxes you can create!
Melody, Chords and Percussive Guitar … ALL IN ONE!
In this fingerpicking guitar lesson I am going to show you how we can combine a melody, chords and a simple percussive pattern to create a very cool sounding exercise.
The number one approach I like the most on guitar is the one in which chords and melody can be combined together. Playing a chord with different voicing will make your guitar playing interesting, rhythmic and engaging.
This is a fingerpicking lesson for the guitar player who want to learn how to combine melody and chords and at the same time add a simple percussive approach to it.
Super challenging day for me guys as I am trying to revamp my technique. In today’s lesson I am going to show you the challenge of learning a fast guitar part at 125BPM speed.
Honestly guys, I almost failed!
In this video I want you to realize that the moment you stop playing the guitar is the moment that your technique will worsen, no matter how long you’ve been playing.
Not a big deal! Just start practicing again and you will get back in shape!
Practicing guitar is one of the most awesome thing guitar players do!
There is nothing more fulfilling than seat down and start working on your technique, chords, melodies, musicality and other aspects of your guitar player. Whether you are practicing chords or a fast guitar part the rule should always be the same: Set small daily goals.
Practice makes perfect. When you start practicing your guitar, you will inevitably build habits and skills that will stick with you throughout your journey as a guitar player. The most important thing is to start out with the correct habits so that you will be on your way to becoming a good guitar player.
Learning a Fast Guitar Part
Today we want to focus on how to play a fast guitar part on the acoustic guitar using the fingerpicking technique.
We are going to follow a bunch of important steps that are really important when it comes to practicing and learning fast guitar parts.
Step 1 – Guitar Postion
How your guitar correctly.
We are going to use a fingerpicking technique to pluck the strings so the right hand should be positioned close to the strings, thumb in front of the fingers and fingers at 45 degree angle.
The guitar should be tight to your body with the back of you guitar touching your body. The right hand arm will “hug” the guitar body. As you are plucking the strings you should feel that the guitar is locked between your body and right hand arm.
With the left hand you should hold the neck with the thumb positioned behind the neck and the index, middle, ring and little finger positioned on the strings. Don’t forget we want to play a fast guitar part so you have to make sure the left hand thumb is positioned right in the middle of the neck.
Don’t seat on the bed, instead find a comfortable chair that allows you to hold your guitar correctly.
Step 2 – Use a Metronome and Tab
Learning a fast guitar part can be frustrating if you don’t set a BPM Goal(Beats per minute).
For this exercise the speed goal in 125 Bpm. If you check the video lesson notice that I am not starting at that speed instead I will start from 85 Bpm.
Practicing with the metronome forces you to play the notes slowly and with accuracy. You will also develop a sense of rhythm, musicality, control, tone and dynamics.
You can learn how to play the guitar part from the video but if you are a beginner guitar player you should consider getting the printable tab which will definitely help you learning with more accuracy. With the tab you will also save time!
Don’t forget to refer to the tab.
Step 3 – Routine
Practice for at least 10-2o minutes. Nobody become a better guitar player with just 3 minutes a day.
Study show that if you want to retain the muscle memory you are working hard to build you should be practicing for at least 30 minutes a day.
If you are really buys, try to split the 30 minutes into three different sections of 1o minutes a day, however you will not get the same benefit of practicing for 30 minutes straight.
Don’t get Frustrated
Learning a fast guitar part takes time. For the first few sessions I recommend that you practice at the same speed for few days before increasing. If you practice five times a week you should be able to increase the Bpm speed on day four. Start slowly and only increase a max of 10 bpm.
Add few bpm every other day and only start at a higher speed once you really feel you are mastering this guitar part.
Hey guys, today I want to show you how to play spooky,creepy and mysterious CHORDS ON GUITAR.
Music, like language, can be used to express a wide range of emotions. It is important to really understand and learn different type of chords so that we can decide what to play based on our mood. I am not saying you should play creepy chords when you are scared, but you should be able to transfer a certain feeling on the guitar.
Exploring mysterious, dark and spooky chords on guitar will tune your ears to a different emotional type of chords which is completely different than playing major and minor chords.
Watch the video lesson below to learn how to play these awesome chords.
Don’t forget to keep the lights on!
More info about the chords I am using in this lesson in the article below 🙂
What is a Chords | Major and Minor Chords on Guitar
Simply put a chord is a bunch of note that sound good together. The majority of chords that we play comes form the major scale.
Major and minor chords on guitar represent one of the most important aspect of any guitar player whether you are a beginner or an expert players.
Chords are built from the major scale by selecting the I III and V degree of the scale. We can apply this system on any degree of the scale and come up with 7 different chords.
The chords generated by the major scale are: Maj, Maj, min, Maj, Maj, min, diminished. For the C major scale we will have: C, Dm, Em, F, G, Am, Bdim.
Learning how to build chords on the major scale is the first step every guitar played should take in order to understand simple music theory concepts, scales, interval s and basic triads.
Different type of Chords
Not all the chords in music come from the Major scale. There are chords, such as the one we are checking out today, which come from scales such as Melodic minor or Harmonic minor scale.
You should move on to those two scales only once you feel familiar with creating chords with the major scale.
Am(#11) – From Harmonic Minor Scale
The first chord I am going to show you in this video is the Am(#11) chord. This chord sounds dark, creepy and really “negative” and minor.
The D# note represents the #11 in this chord. The notes in this chord are: A A D# E C
If we analyze the A minor chord as well as the A minor scale notice that the note D is natural and not sharp. This is because this chord doesn’t come from the minor scale but from the harmonic minor scale E F# G A B C D# E.
Check the video or download the tab on my Patreon page.
Em69 – From Melodic Minor Scale
The second chord in this video is called Em69 from the Melodic minor scale.
The notes in this chords are: E G D# F# G
The Melodic minor works perfectly if you want to create mysterious chords on guitar. The E Melodic minor scale is played like this: E F# G A B C# D# E. The 6th and 7th degree are sharped.
This is a beautiful sounding chord!
Am69 – From the Melodic Minor Scale
Another minor chord from the Melodic minor scale the Am69 will be played in a completely different shape.
The notes in this chords are: A C E F# B.
This chords is beautiful and way easier to play than the Em69. The A minor melodic minor scale goes like this: A B C D E F# G#
The Am(maj7) – From the Melodic Minor Scale
The last example comes from the A Melodic minor scale. One of the thing I like the most about this chord is that we will be playing a minor chord but with the major 7th so the sound is very particular.
Hey guys welcome back! Today I want to show you five simple Spanish phrases that you can play over a guitar backing track! This is the Ep.9 of my Fingerstyle Solo program that focuses on playing melodies and solos over backing tracks.
Practicing and playing over a backing track is a very important and useful exercise that will help you improve your timing, musicality, technique, plucking and rhythm.
In this lesson I really tried to play the five melodies in the easiest way possible so that everyone can give it a try, beginners included.
There are two backing-track available with and without click (metronome). If this is the first time you are playing over a backing track, start by using the one with the click.
About this lesson
Key: E minor
Chord Progression: C | Am | Em
Scale Used: E minor scale in different positions
Three Tips: Always start with the backing track recorded with the click. Connect the phrases slowly. Listen to the phrases even when you are not practicing, it will help you memorize them better.
Hey guys, welcome to another fingerpicking lesson. Today I want to show you a very simple step to create beautiful basic chords on acoustic guitar.
If you are bored of playing always the same basic chords this lesson will definitely show you how to simple spice up basic chords such as C major, D major, G major, E minor, A minor etc
This simple trick can be used on any basic chords and in any key but in this lesson we will only be looking at two keys: C major and G major.
All the info you need in the video lesson!
You can access the tab as well as video with tab on screen on my Patreon page.
