5 Essential Steps to Learn Travis Picking
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 29 ก.ค. 2024
- I LOVE fingerstyle guitar, and lately, I’ve really gotten into Travis picking (named after the late-great Merle Travis who popularized the style).
I’m going to teach you the 5 ESSENTIAL steps you’ll need to learn this fun & challenging style of finger playing -- in under 10 minutes.
Step #1 (0:47) is SO easy, you might laugh at me -- but I promise you it’ll get a bit trickier.
Don’t get discouraged if you struggle at first going through these steps! You probably won’t nail this style immediately, it will take some practice -- BUT I’m super confident if you practice these 5 steps, you’ll nail this style in time.
More than anything, I really hope you have fun playing these songs and don’t forget to grab the tab chart for this little progression: bit.ly/33gThGO
What are your favorite songs that use Travis picking?
PS -- I’ll be posting a follow-up to this video that will dive a bit deeper into Travis picking, so hit the subscribe button below and make sure your notifications are on so you don’t miss it!
Chapters
0:00 Introduction
0:58 HIT SINGLE BASS NOTES
2:16 STEP #2 ALTERNATE BASS NOTES
3:38 ALTERNATE BETWEEN 3 STRINGS
4:57 STEP #4 PUT A MELODY ON TOP
6:25 ADD A SYNCOPATED NOTE
Get the Tab Chart for this progression!
►bit.ly/33gThGO
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Never too late to start..👍
Enjoy the journey
I've been playing for decades and performing for the last 5 years in coffee houses, etc. and this is the best Travis picking tutorial I've found so far. It will open some pickin' doors! Thank you!
It took me literally years to build the travispicking coordination. Now it is so natural to me. I can do it without thinking. Hard work and regular practice pays off for sure.
53 years old and I am learning. Your video has been the most helpful to me. I've seen quite a bunch. Your method is by far the best for me.
Excellent lesson … as a beginner I appreciate you setting the expectations of time and effort. As I’m learning … it’s all about putting in the time and effort. Thanks!
Thank you for breaking this down!!! What a big difference it makes, to practice it this way. It’s like on the drums when we first learn left right left right on the snare over and over simple and easy until it literally becomes second nature.
Thank you! And most importantly, thank you for explaining that it takes practice of the very basic steps over and over again.
Great resource. One of the best I saw surely. I suggest you to make the PART2: some progressions, runs and bridges. Keep up the good work
Exactly the methodical, iterative, progressive procedural walkthrough I was looking for. Thanks so much!
On your picking hand, you have excellent hand position there. It's very important for players to hold the thumb to finger ratio at a "45 degree" angle. (Brooks Robertson explains that in a Truefire lesson. It was taught to him by Buster B. Jones.)
It's basically making sure your thumb is *not* over your pointer finger; it's hard to tell exactly from your camera angle, but it seems you're holding your hand appropriately: your thumb pick is about an inch closer to the fretboard than the pointer finger.
Just trying to help people (like me who started learning Travis Picking by ear in the mid 1980s) not have to unlearn a bad habit many folks make. I see a lot of guitar "teachers" on TH-cam * Guitar World teaching Travis and Boom*Chick (think Jerry Reed, Tommy Emmanuel,...) lessons without proper pick hand technique.
The 45 degree angle makes it possible to play really fast without your thumb tripping over your pointer finger when pinching and boom*chicking.
You are a very good teacher!
I'm glad I found your channel.
Beautiful guitar, too!
(I have subbed. I can no longer play due to spinal injury, but I love watching others play. Thank you for sharing your wisdom!)
A massive thank you for this lesson. I had tried Travis picking a couple of times in the past but always gave up and even put the guitar down because I wasn't enjoying it.
After running through this lesson I've got to stage 5 and took a look at the Freight Train video this evening,
Really appreciated.
I am new to your channel and love how you take the lesson slow, still a rookie at 55 yrs of age, but inspire to play half decent some day! Thanks for your help!
I first learned Dust in the wind... now I use my clumsy travis picking as a way to change up most songs I learn. Makes a lot of beginner songs sound a lot more difficult and complicated :) This is another great lesson with some excellent tips to help pick this style up with much less effort than I've put in so far. I got stumped on "the entertainer" in the early 90s and still haven't picked up that ragtime/ travis picking yet but I feel like this lesson holds an important key and bridge to where I want to go. Thank you!
Travis Picking has been my passion too. Love it! Thx for the video!
Deep River Blues
Very helpful lesson for some muscle memory. Thank you🎸
I have watched several teachers even Tommy Emanuel explaining how to travis pick. This is the first one that helped me by the step by step explanation. I got it.
So helpful, thank you for the video! I'm loving your Martin shirt & Taylor guitar combo!
Backed up to this lesson ! Thanks for the wonderful lesson 👍👏👏👏
Great lesson learned Travis Picking a few years ago but never had it demonstrated like you did, Thankyou so much, want to give it a try this week.
Yeah that style of playing really takes a lot of work and proves to be quite a challenge,
I started doing that in about 1977 started reading music in 1980 and started reading finger style guitar and playing it very well in about 1991 I’ve been on this instrument for 46 years now and I love it not much of a streamer but just an old picker all of these great all guitar players have passed away somebody needs to carry their legend out and it’s people like you to do that thanks a lot appreciate it have a great day🎸👍☮️😁
Thank you so much for this inspirational tutorial, it's helped me so much, I'm definitely going to learn this if it takes all my life.
Oh my gosh. This is so hpful. I love guitar picking and didn't know how to start. I love James Taylor style too, but have been struggling with the picking part. I taught myself to play a year ago, so I need all the help I can get! Thank you!
This picking style is my nemesis... this might just be the tutorial to help me get it! Thank you!
I’ve been a flat picker for years but now at 59 I am venturing into finger picking.
I’m primarily a songwriter but I need to add to my tool box and Travis picking is important. Thanks for this tutorial.🎶
I started playing around 12 years ago and this is the first time I've understood Travers picking. Thanks, David.
While I enjoy all your lessons - this one was the best. It is so amazing that once you have this down, it basically re-opens your entire songbook to something new and different. Well done and thank you
Excellent!,Thank you for a great lesson .
thanks for this lesson I didn't see it until "freight train" video.great
Muy buena lección, maestro.
Muchas gracias.
I like this idea for learning Travis picking. I subscribed and turned on Notifications (and Liked).
Thank you very much I've been meaning to learn travis picking for a while now and i seem to have picked up some kind of rhythmic pattern using your step by step guide. I will keep chipping away at it. I Appreciate you 👍
This lesson helped me. I'm TP every song I know now. That Martin thermal is fin sweet.
Great lesson. Very clear and easy to follow. Thanks
If anyone is getting frustrated with this, its good to know that when you sleep your brain learns and remembers how to perform physical tasks you've encountered during the day. The more you make it a problem that your brain is trying to solve, the more your brain will focus on it during your sleep, and you should notice yourself getting incrementally better each day. This helped me keep going when learning this and helped me take a calmer approach without getting too frustrated and giving up. You usually wont improve much within one given day so practice as much as possible and make sure to get a healthy amount of sleep and you'll have it down much faster, the increments will be minor at times but every now and then you'll be surprised at the noticeable step forward you took :)
Its true
I need to ask because I can't tell. I picked up my guitar a month ago and I just watched this video now and I can do it a bit faster than his slow version before he does the fast one near the end. I started working on finger style from day one, but did he just mean getting the speed could take months or years? I'm very unclear on what he meant
TheDaarkWarrior Pretty sure his point was just alluding to the fact that everyone is different, some people catch on faster, some people have very limited time to practice, some folks struggle or are complete beginners. There’s no set time for how long it takes to learn.
@@brettadkins4698 thanks for the response
I want to believe
Thanks, I love your lesson and how you approached Travis picking.
Thanks man, that was very helpful!
Best teacher on the tube 👏 thank you, love your videos and style
Great lesson. Ima try it when and I'd I get a guitar again. I can tell that your lesson plan is workable and you took a lot of thinking and practice yourself to develop it. Thanks
Thank you. A great lesson. 👍👍👍
Hey this is great! I had forgotten my fingerstyle chops from a dozen years ago, and watching this lesson was very informative. Something to practice every day during the 2020 Quarantine...
I've struggled for years with this. Going to put all of this into practice right now. Extremely good video. Thank you
Great explanation and super helpful. Thanks!
Great!!Thank you, Maestro. Saludos desde España
Definitely mr. Sandman for travis picking. Great song, great chords, great rhythm
I read this Totally wrong and ended up searching Metallica!
This will take some time to develop "chord-ination"
haha
Lol very clever, "chord-ination."
I feel like you're just stringin' us along.
but please dont fret if you dont get it straight away
That is so bad
You mean there’s a chance? I might be able to do this at some point?
Thanks for sharing your gradient approach!
This is a form I have always admired. 🙏
Thanks a million. Im very new to Travis Picking and was trying to play Carl Perkins - Blue Suede Shoes where he Travis Picks and it was doing my head in. Come across your video and it all started to make sense. Its going to take some time to get where i want to be with it, but this video helped a ton. Thanks!!
Doing my head in.
Midlands?
Great instruction!! Keep up it coming. You are a great teacher and musician.
Stephen C
Great lesson. Thx
Very nice tutorial, this is how I will work on getting this down. Best one I've seen so far.
It's tough! Been messing around trying to travis pick and getting frustrated for some time. Found this really helpful. Too many vids on tube with different ideas, think i'll stick with this now. Thanks...
"Leader of the band"
This is the exact lesson for the song i want to learn thankyou
thanx, very helpful. looking forward to the next video
excellent breakdown. I haven't seen this lesson shown so well as this.
Thanks! This is a super helpful tutorial! I came here from learning Dust in the Wind. This is a great transition. Excited to get this down. Now fingers hurt and my hand is cramping! A little rest and I'll be back at it!
Love this advise. Brillant
Very well explained. Time to start on this now!!
It ain't easy, but that's the simplest explanation I've heard yet, and you didn't neglect to point out the bass note change on the C chord. Now I'm going to practice this tonight.
Excellent! Thank you.
This is basically a much more useful version of Tommy Emmanuel's lesson. The same one he's been giving for 20-30 years. This video actually breaks down his "step 4" which he always blows right through. Thank you!!! Where you been for 10 months???
Thank you very much awesome video love Tommy Emanuel playing an energy on the guitar he’s the one that has me on this kick an your video has given me real hope to accomplish this goal of Travis picking thank you.👍🏾🎸
Thanks for this. It is great to start from the start. Lots of fun.
Great breakdown!
great lesson I have been trying to finger pick for the pest part of 40 years never could get thumb independence, as soon as the fingers started to move, the thumb stooped.I just got back into playing the guitar hopefully this time i get it.
Maylor ... no ... Tartin!
Most helpful lesson.
Thanks Nate, mate!
???
Ahhhhhh so that's what it's called!!! I've been learning this for the past 6 months passenger does alot of this
Awesome lesson! Thanks
I grew up all metal all the time in the 80s, then got invited to a bluegrass jam in the 90s. There was a guy there that was a fantastic fingerpicker and played some Chet Atkins songs for me. That really opened up a whole new world for me. Exactly as you say in this video, it is all about learning one thing, then adding one more note, then one more, then one more. With that being said, my two favorite Travis picked songs are "Windy and Warm" by either Chet Atkins or Doc and Merle Watson and "Ready for the Times to Get Better" by Doc Watson. Also, everything that Jerry Reed and Buster B. Jones has ever recorded.
Really good tutorial!!!
Great lesson, well done.
Very well done introduction to Travis picking!
This is a great tutorial, thank you!
You are a good teacher. You get where the student is. Thanks.
I just started Travis picking a few months ago when i started learning some Blaze Foley tunes. Blaze is/was amazing. And you're right, it is so fun to play. So far i've learned Clay Pigeons, Cold, Cold World, Moonlight Song and Small Town Hero by Blaze. Clay pigeons and Small Town Hero are my favourite for sure. Still have a lot more by Blaze that i wanna learn yet.
I'm Excited and looking forward on learning how to Travis pick I just Need to get my hands on a Thump pick
Thanks for this Man! One if the best explanations I’ve ever heard ✌🏼
Wow good for you Pbarry. I can play using Travis picking. However I've never Liked the way I sound. This tutorial is great, having better results, fun as well! Your right "it takes investment time". Thanks
great iv been playing the guitar for a long time allways wanted to play finger picking this is a great lesson thanks.
Well Done! Thank You
Great lesson. Best I've seem on YT.
When I was a teen, I played guitar (more or less) and have stayed with it sporadically. At every jam session there would be guitar players and bass players everywhere, but drummers were hard to come by. So I borrowed a cheap drum kit from a buddy. He taught me the basics but there is/was a basic "rock" beat that took me FOR-EV-ER to work out. One day it clicked. All during my teens and 20s I was "the drummer" in impromptu and weekend warrior bands. Anyhow...
Travis picking, for me, is that rock beat. Now that I'm retired, I will see if FOR-EV-ER and my Swiss Cheese brain can team up and learn how to actually do Travis picking.
Cheers!
Great lesson! Using a metronome that clicks on eighth notes really helped.
Nicely done
Nicely done...slow and steady and don't give up! One of my favorite Travis picking songs is Hello In There by John Prine. Cheers!
That’s what I was going to suggest too! A wonderful song. Love John Prine.
Excellent lesson!
Love it. How do we get to the next follow on lesson...please?
Thanks. Really helped to start me off.
I know this is really knit pickey but Merle played with his thumb and index finger. Too truely play Travis style, one uses the thumb and index finger. That is what made him amazing. Thanks.
Surprising how good that simple pattern sounds, going to learn dust in the wind and some Simon and Garfunkel, cheers and thanks for the lesson.
Thank you very much, I'm going to practice this today 🤗🤗🤗😍😍👏👏👏
Like how you teach. Thanks
Really good tutorial ... cheers mate ..
Hi Nate only just discovered this video it is so simple but so well done, loved it, helped me no end, as has been asked before where is the follow up video
This was very clear. It will keep me occupied for a year. Thanks 😊
Very helpful, I just subscribed. Thanks! I love learning guitar.
Nice lesson!
Thank you, being a classical guitar player the PIMA really helps!
This was the vid that fixed it for me! Thanyou,
Really helpful lesson. The explanation of what fingers you were using to pick which strings could have been a bit clearer. Thanks for breaking it down so much.
Nate said : (i)ndex on G, (m)iddle on B.
Check the Tab Chart PDF in the link: it's all anotated clearly.
(p) thumb on E, A D strings.
Top E never played in this study.
Holy cow!!! It seems impossible!! But I’m gonna go for it! Thanks for the lesson and tips mate! Is there anyone here who couldn’t do this and now can? I’d love to know how you got on CHEERS 🍻