travis picking for beginners guitar

Travis picking for beginners. Travis picking guitar lesson. Basic travis picking pattern.

From the Secret Guitar Teacher Site : http://secretguitarteacher.com/youtube/ssb.php?lp_id=1191

Video script:

Exactly how Travis picking got its name is one of those abiding mysteries.

Although it seems to be universally agreed that it is named after the celebrated country guitarist Merle Travis, I have never heard a recording of his actually playing in what is now commonly taught as Travis Picking style!

That aside, learning to play travis picking is a logical next step for anyone who has first mastered the basic fingerpicking patterns like the Pimami and Pimamima patterns taught in the Beginners Sound Bites. Basic Travis picking sounds something like this and in this lesson we'll learn how to do this by building the pattern one step at a time.

To keep this lesson simple we'll work entirely with the basic open C chord.

Central to the style is the constant working of the thumb on the four main beats of the bar.

So we count that 1 2 3 4, but in almost all cases the thumb alternates between strings, either adjacent ones or more usually, jumping over a string, so playing a pair three strings apart. So lets call that step 1:

Notice the line labelled Picking Hand? Showing the letter P under each note.
Well to avoid confusion, when labelling fingers of the picking hand, I am sticking to the Spanish guitar notation convention, often used in finger picking instructions that labels each digit according to their Spanish names.

OK so how long should you practice step one? Well here is a deceptively valuable tip: No matter your level of experience, simply practice it until you can play it steadily and continuously for two minutes. For experienced players this target will be reached in...2 minutes.

But, if you have never used your thumb like this before, you may be surprised how difficult it is to sustain this and two minutes will seem like forever! So it may take days to attain that target.

The point is, that unless you can reach that two-minute target, there is absolutely nothing to be gained, and much to be lost by adding anything else to the exercise.

OK, you have passed the two-minute test with step one, else you wouldn't have let the video roll on to this point right?

Step two is to add a pinch on beat one. It's called a pinch because you are moving the ring finger and thumb towards each other like this and please notice that you only play this on the first beat...the rest is the same as before.

So, pause the video and put in an honest two minutes on that pattern before continuing.

Step three introduces the first note that we are going to play off the main beat. You play this with your index finger on the second string on the and beat after beat two like this.

Now it's time to introduce my second main tip of the lesson.

As soon as a pattern starts to get a little complicated, don't waste time trying to loop it right away. Instead, play it once and then deliberately pause, reset, and then play it again. And with each new pattern, I suggest doing it that way for at least one minute before attempting to play it continuously.

So one minute playing it like this Audio and then try two minutes like this.

On to step 4 which will be the final step for this lesson. We are introducing another note on an offbeat, this time with the ring finger playing the Top string on the and beat after beat three.

And again, start practicing with a deliberate break like this.
Then once you can sustain that for a minute, close the gap and go for a 2- minute run.

Ok, that's all for this lesson. Practice that for a week or so and you'll build up a great deal of strength and security in that right hand. And in the next lesson we'll look at how to transport that pattern to other chords so we can start working towards playing some nice tunes with it.

Видео travis picking for beginners guitar канала New Secret Guitar Teacher