Introduction to Part 1: Playing Picking Patterns

Welcome!

So glad you're here. Before you play your first video, let me point out a few features that will help you get the most out of Travis Pick Like a Pro.

Lessons Menu

That's the menu to your left (or above if you're on mobile). Use it to move from one lesson to the next.

Video

This is the bread and butter of the course. It should look good on all devices--let me know if you have any problems. The dots along the bottom are chapter markers to help you jump around quickly.

Lesson Info Tab

That's what you're looking at right now. Check this out before you watch each video. It'll include tips and also links to stuff I reference in the video.

Jam Track Player Tab

In Travis Pick Like a Pro, all practice tracks are video-based, so you can ignore this tab.

Downloads Tab

This is mostly for chord charts and other printable reference materials. I'll usually mention in the video if there's something of interest here.

Transcript

Most people will want to just watch the video, but if you prefer to read for whatever reason, here you go. Ok, hit play on your video to get started!

Hi, I want to teach you how to Travis pick. Such a fun way to play the guitar. It's named after Merle Travis. He didn't invent it. He got it from the country blues musicians who are doing things like this. And so forth. But he's the one who got the style on the radio, and so it's named after him.

The way you can tell that someone is Travis picking versus some other style of finger style guitar is that there's a steady, alternating bass. The thumb is alternating between two strings like this. More three strings. And then the fingers are playing the treble strings, either in a repetitive pattern like this. Or they're playing a melody. Isn't that pretty? And the first time I played that style of guitar--that was called chord-melody Travis picking--which means thumbs playing the chords, then your fingers are playing the melody all at the same time. First time I played that for my dad, he lit up. So he grew up in Illinois during the Great Depression. And, you know, I grew up listening to Led Zeppelin and Pink Floyd. And so, you know, he was respectful of my music, but we did not have a lot of overlap in our musical tastes. But I first time I learned how to play chord-melody, finger style.....it was just this instant connection.

It's not just my dad. People really resonate with this style of guitar playing.
For one thing, you don't need to sing in order for the song to sound like a complete song. It can all come out of your guitar and it also sounds like a magic trick. It sounds like two instruments playing at the same time, so it's fascinating to watch and to listen to, and super fun to be able to perform this magic trick for other people.

And so I want to give you a taste of the magic in this course. But I also have seen a lot of finger style courses really skip a lot of steps, go too fast, and some of them, a lot of them, seem like they assume that the person watching the video is just great at music and already kind of knows how to play finger style. And so if you're not in that category, if you're playing guitar later in life or you feel like music doesn't come really naturally to you, this course is really designed for you. And you know, if you find the course easy, you can always skip ahead. So I think this is the perfect speed for most people who want to learn how to play Travis picking from square one.

Let me give you a little tour of the course. So the course has two parts which you can see in your sidebar menu. If you're on your phone, the menu will be up above. Part one is called "Playing Picking Patterns". You can click it to expand and see all the lessons. In this part, I teach you how to play some repetitive picking patterns and to sing over them if you wish. I teach you a song you probably know "Leaving on a Jet Plane" by John Denver and one you may not. It's called the "Orphan Girl" by Gillian Welch.

At the end of part one, I have what I call the choose your own adventure section, named after one of my favorite book series when I was a kid. In this, I give you a chance to try your hand at Travis, picking a song that isn't normally Travis picked. These are all actually songs I teach you how to strum elsewhere on the site, so you may already know how to strum these. And now you can try finger picking them.

And then part two called weaving in the melody is where I teach you how to play chord-melody Travis picking. I ease the learning curve a bit with "You Are My Sunshine", and then I teach you a beautiful solo playing the melody of "Orphan Girl". If you get to the end of this course and I dearly, dearly hope you do, you'll be able to learn your favorite Travis picked songs just by finding tabs for them on the web, and that's where it really gets fun. So I want to do everything in my power to help you get there.

A quick note about the interface. There are a bunch of tabs down here. Lesson info often has some information in it. There are no jam track players for Travis picking--that was just for the Strum and Sing in 60 Days Course. The download section will often have downloadable PDFs and sometimes guitar profiles. You'll find those typically in the song lesson lessons, so check that tab when you start a new lesson. Each lesson will have a transcript, and the feedback tab is for, you know, if you have any questions or problems or you just want to tell me how much you love me. I'd love to hear from you. So please don't hesitate to use the feedback tab. And then finally, I'm really excited to have each lesson indexed. So you see these little dots here along the play bar. These are basically like sections or chapters in the lesson. You can get a whole list of the sections here using this icon and also if you want, if you're like playing along with a lesson and you want to slow down the tempo, you can do so right here. You can also speed it up. If you think I'm just talking too darn slow. OK, now that your way around, go ahead and choose the next lesson titled "Gear You'll Need" right here. OK see you there!