Travis Picking with Don Ross

Don Ross talks about fingerpicking patterns with a focus on Travis Picking in this lesson. He explains the pattern thoroughly and at a step-by-step pace so that it can be picked up by fingerstyle players of any level. Check out more from Don Ross at JamPlay! http://www.jamplay.com/youtube7/

Be sure to check out our blog:
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Here's a great fingerstyle guitar lesson on the rolling E blues:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mj1ste...

This is an awesome fingerstyle Chet Atkins medley by Jim Deeming:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bTjut-...

Need a break from fingerstyle? Learn tons of new strums from all genres with Steve:
http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=... .


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Closed Caption:

hi there this is don ross for Jam
play.com now a lot of people who learn
fingerstyle guitar have heard about
Travis picking the moment
don't necessarily know why it's called
that or what it is necessarily
well as a bit of a antecedent to that
i'll quote the great leo kottke leo
kottke put it really well
he said if you want to play fingerstyle
guitar first learn the patterns and then
second unlearn the patterns and its
really good advice
learning the patterns the picking
patterns really gets you going
get your hands moving especially your
right hand
it helps you develop a lot of dexterity
and the patterns end up being a an open
door to a whole lot of repertoire as
well because so many picking patterns
have been used as the basis of so many
famous songs think of songs like the
boxer by simon and garfunkel think of
leader of the band by Dan Fogelberg or
whatever the always songs have a very
strong Travis picking pattern in them
now Travis picking gets its name from
Merle Travis whose of a country blues
picker and the mostly famous in the
middle part of the 20th century and what
he was famous for was coming up with a
sort of a finger picked kind of
accompaniment to his songs now he mostly
just from what I've heard I'm not a not
a big expert on Merle Travis music what
I've heard from other players is that he
mostly just used his thumb and first
finger to create his pattern and so he'd
be
playing this kind of thing
just using his time in this first finger
and it sounded great it was very
rhythmic what happened is through the
sixties and seventies and later people
started taking that pattern and
developing it and turning it into
something quite a bit bigger and maybe
in a lot a lot weighs a lot of ways more
useful and a lot of different kind of
contexts
you could use these patterns to play pop
music to play folk music to play country
music to play blues music
it could be very very you know used
across a whole lot of different genres
and so for that reason it's a really
good place to start in terms of getting
your hands moving finger style
so what we'll do first is will look at
the role of the thumb and Travis picking
now the thumb is pretty much always not
just playing bass notes but also really
keeping time in a big way and in this
pattern you'll see that it's it's really
really important
so for example let's start with the G
chord we're in standard tuning
all right and with the standard tuning
we're just going to play the the regular
sort of six string G chord
now there's a couple of different ways
of fingering the G chord a lot of us
learn it this way with the the B string
open like this and a lot of learning
look this way with a denote here on the
B string 3rd fret so they have slightly
different sounds here's the the one of
the open be
and here's the one with the D on the B
string
just a little bit different so what I'll
do is I'll use this sort of more third
heavy by third i mean this this note is
the third of the chord and its really
really apparent going to use that chord
voicing and to teach this pattern now
with cords like g the lowest note the
lowest G note in the voicing is here on
the sixth string here at the 3rd fret of
these six string you have the note G now
that g ends up being the first note in
the pattern because it's what's called
the route
so the route the lowest g in the G chord
so that the note basically that gives
the court its name
that's what we're going to start the
pattern with so we use our thumb
we go to the sixth string we play that
note on the sixth string the g
now the pattern we're going to do with
our thumb circulates between primarily
for the g chord circles between string 6
string 4
so essentially you're going to be
counting time with your thumb like this
in a 44 pattern you'd be going
one two three
for
12
34
and that just keeps
going and going like this
you ever ready buddy
all right
so what you want after a while as you
want your thumb that alternating thumb
part to be kind of like autopilot kind
of like we're to the point where you
don't have to think about it
your thumb just does it just keeps time
it becomes like tapping your foot so
it's not like a heartbeat because you
don't have to think about your heartbeat
but when you tap your foot you have to
kind of think about it
well when you think about it a little
bit
and then just let it go and let other
stuff happened
like I can talk and do it at the same
time awesome
can't do that chew gum at the same time
but anyway
then what we can do is that that ends up
being our four four time
one two three four 1234
it's really just a pattern of two beats
that gets repeated once so total of four
math the math and music are not as
related as arithmetic and music are
anyway so we're doing the the on beats
with your thumb and then the fingers
fill in on the off beats
so in other words what we're going to do
I thumb is going to be counting one two
three four and our finger is going to
play in double time
the notes between the notes ok it's
going to split these what are called
quarter notes up in 28 notes so we're
going to fit trouble notes in between
the base notes so we'll end up counting
like one and two and three and four and
one and two and three and four
so the 1 2 3 4 is still there on their
thumb but our fingers are going to fill
in the and one and two and three and
four and like this
let's just try this with thumb and first
finger to start with
ok thumb is alternating between six and
four
three
for
one
- 34 our first finger let's assign it to
our third string the g string
so it's a G chord
so there's an open G there and what
we're going to do is for now we're just
going to go one and two and three and
four
one and two
and three and four
we're doing everything with just the
thumb and the first thing
one
and three and four
one and two
three
for
so already were set up a little rhythmic
pattern
with some of the notes that make up the
G chord not all of them but some of them
ok let's add a wrinkle to that and let's
make the thumb part a little more
interesting
instead of just going between strings
six and four
yeah
let's add a variation to the pattern
where we go
64
and then 54
so we end up with 12
34
one
three
for what we're doing is we're
incorporating more of the notes and in
the court to make it sound fuller right
again just with the first finger here
so thumb doing alternating 6 45 for and
the thumb playing the offbeat i started
rather the finger first finger playing
the offbeat's in between the notes there
let's try together one two three four
one and
three
for
one and two
one more bar
one and two
for
stop all right right one more wrinkle
let's add another string now what we're
going to do is we're going to be using
your thumb and first finger but also
finger number two
ok with guitar playing what we tend to
do is we number the number the fingers
thumb and then one two three four
so thumbs going to continue doing what
it was doing the thumb part hasn't
changed much
yeah
again we're alternating
64
54
quarter notes like that
and on the 8th note and the offbeat
we're going to add this string like we
were
and then after we play
string for we're going to play string -
with finger number two but this is what
it sounds like just the first part of
the pattern
one and two
so just done half the bar there the
other half of the pattern is
so the finger part essentially keeps
repeating it's like we get the OnBeat we
get string 3
on the string -
on beat string 3
on the string -
like this one and two
three and four
one
three
for
one
for
two more bars
one and two
three and four
and two
three
and for
stop great now that works really well
for the g chord starting on strings 6y
again
well because that root note is on the
sixth string that's the important string
to start with
so what that means is any chord that you
play in this position for example any
quarter you play that has that route on
the sixth string you can play that
pattern that should work just great
so let's try a different court let's try
something like a minor because we're
going to stay in the key of G a G and E
minor have a lot of the same notes in
them so they sound good one after the
other
so we go to the E minor chord
now we're playing the six string open to
get that II
right
so there's our root of the E minor chord
right
and we'll play the exact same right hand
pattern with the E minor chord
let's start with the simpler one where
we just use one finger like this
together one and two and three and four
and
so string numbers 6 34 35 34 36 34 35 3
time one and two and three
for
one and two and three
what
and stop now let's try the same exercise
but adding the second finger on the
second string like this
listen once 34
so string numbers are like this
634 2534 2634 253
- the time is still just 44 time
one and two
and three and four and one and two and
let's try that together right 1 2 3 on
the E minor chord and and two and three
and four
12
three
for
strings 6342 5342
yeah
yeah
good now the next the next wrinkle would
be to go back and forth between those
two chords
ok so maybe what we would do is due to
bars of G and then two bars of a minor
so all together we'll have this little
exercise that's four bars long
listen once then we'll try it together
it would sound like this one two three
four one and two
and one and two
switch the E minor one
through
yeah
back to G
aqui minor
and start
now as far as the pattern that starts on
the sixth string like that
another really great thing to do with
these cords that are their cords that
have the root on the sixth string and
also the the voicings
use all six strings so be nice to come
up with a version of the pattern
they used all six strings because hey
you know fuller is usually better more
notes is usually more interesting than
fewer notes right most of the time
not always most of the time so let's try
adding one more wrinkle to the pattern
making it just that little bit more
challenging and by doing it this way we
start using finger number three
now I know that this for a lot of people
is a big challenge a lot of people find
doing thumb and first two fingers
not to that thumb and all three fingers
and that's getting into you know having
a walk and chew gum territory so that's
all right we'll get there
so let's start with our very basic
pattern on g like this together three
and four and one
that's just what the first finger
add the second finger
right
now we're going to do
is we're going to have the third finger
what ends up happening to happen is you
you have to play the pattern over the
course of two bars
so what we'll end up doing is thumb
first finger thumb second finger thumb
first finger thumb third finger and that
third finger is going to be playing on
the high string on string number one
ok so again assign your fingers to the
strings so finger number one on string
number three right here
finger number two on string number two
and finger number three on string number
one and this way you won't have to
did you know second and third guess so
what fingers i use on that string on it
just be really strict with yourself for
now and then it makes the pattern that
much easier to play
so here's here we're going to start just
with the first finger then with the
second two fingers and I heard
I'll introduce the third finger and see
if you can fall right in
I'll go back and just do that the
pattern with a third finger on its own
so here we go 34
just the first finger
add the second finger on the B string
do that another couple of times
and two
three and
now see if you can fall in here i'll
come back to this
so what I did there was I took the same
pattern that we've been working up
towards using fingers one and two and
every second time that I would be using
my second finger is my third finger
instead on the high string
alright so breaking it down really
slowly
it's like this thumb
first finger on 3rd string thumb on the
fourth string
then
second finger on the second string
thumb again the bottom string followed
by the third string
first finger followed by the thumb again
4th string and then
this time we play the high string third
finger so listen again
this way we're playing all six strings
in the court
let's try together one two three four
and one and two
three and four
string numbers it's like this
6 3 for 25 341
the time is still just a 44 bar
and two
three
dog
so that longer pattern fits all in a 44
bar
essentially what you're doing is you're
taking a to beat pattern and we first
learned and making it twice as long by
adding that high string and then it
makes for a really interesting sounding
bar now the last wrinkle in that little
section where you were doing
Travis pattern starting on with root on
the sixth string
let's go back and forth between two
chords like we did earlier that same two
chords G and E minor but this time with
the fuller sounding pattern where we use
all six strings like i said earlier the
g
and the E minor
our voices that use all six strings so
this panel some great because it's a six
string pattern in the end all right and
we're using thumb and all three of our
picking fingers so let's let's try it
going from e a gene
GD e minor listen once what I'll do is
I'll do two bars of G and then two bars
of E minor back and forth
it'll sound like this
we switch now
guess it's a little early that time
yeah
back to G
you can see what I'm doing it slowly
like this I'm a sort of trying to
discipline myself to try to play this
last note on the G chord before I switch
to the E minor makes it a bit
challenging if you end up with that
that's okay it'll sound great because
you're going to the E minor chord anyway
so don't sweat it too much
let's try together one and two and three
and four and
yeah
select g
- E minor
two more times
I mistake there
that's better
yeah
past time
great now that pattern that six string
for pattern is something that you can
use in a whole lot of different contexts
and eventually don't want to speed it up
maybe depending on the piece of music
yeah
it sounds a bit more like a focus on
there or you could even make it almost
like a bluegrass kind of thing if it
really speed up
ok so that's where we're headed toward
spoon with this with this pattern as we
develop speed with it
so there's your six string picking
pattern and we'll be using it a lot here
on Jan play