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Posts: 6996
Location: Jet City | Amazing! I need to learn some Travis picking techniques.
The REAL DEAL!
Can anyone here do this sort of stuff? |
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April 2006
Posts: 2491
Location: Copenhagen Denmark | Is he using a thumb -pick , `cause if , I´ll need to get one..
Vic |
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April 2006
Posts: 2491
Location: Copenhagen Denmark | Damon, I do a li`ll Travis -pickin`, sans thumby tho `...
Vic |
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December 2006
Posts: 6996
Location: Jet City | I think he is using a thumb pick.
Any good videos or books or anything you can direct me to? In English preferably? ;) |
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October 2006
Posts: 5576
Location: big island | i do a tad of travis pickin'. merle does use a thumbpick and i am recently getting used to one myself. damon, you need to check out marcel dadi on youtube also. he does travis pickin' on an adamas! |
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Location: big island | marcel also produced some great learning videos before he was killed. musicmike has a set. |
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March 2005
Posts: 12761
Location: Boise, Idaho | I can't use a thumbpick, but I've never had a good one. My thumbnail works, though. I was surprised he only uses one finger.
Get a Pete Huttlinger dvd. He has a couple on fingerstyle exercises. If you can get through his 12 exercises a day, you can do anything. |
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August 2006
Posts: 2804
Location: ranson,wva | mark,for those that cant stand a standard thumb pick pick up a fred kelly speed pick...they are the best thing since sliced bread...lol
i to do some of the finger style stuff..self taught of course..i started out using thumb and one finger...im up to thumb and 2 fingers now....jas
btw marcel dadi is my hero :P |
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March 2005
Posts: 12761
Location: Boise, Idaho | I've got a broken fingernail on the ring finger. It's screwed up a bunch of my standard songs. Damn yardwork. I use all 5 on some songs. Practice rolls with the thumb and then 4 fingers in order. It's always harder for me to go one direction over the other. |
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Posts: 6996
Location: Jet City | Randy, this the series?
picking dvd |
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November 2006
Posts: 217
Location: Snåsa, Norway | Originally posted by Damon67:
Any good videos or books or anything you can direct me to? In English preferably? ;) Try this one: The real Merle Travis Guitar
As close you can get to be taught by Merle, I think! ;) |
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October 2006
Posts: 5576
Location: big island | in response to damon:
probably, but musicmike will have to verify that. i've never seen 'em. |
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October 2006
Posts: 5576
Location: big island | this clip and several others posted on youtube are probably from the series:
marcel plays and teaches merle\'s fuller blues |
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December 2006
Posts: 6996
Location: Jet City | holy cow.
that's a complete re-learn of the guitar from top to bottom. I may as well try to learn Jeff Healey's style.
Craziness. |
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March 2005
Posts: 12761
Location: Boise, Idaho | I think the same when I try to learn to play an electric solo with a pick, Damon. It's probably all just a matter of what you start with. |
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March 2002
Posts: 1380
Location: Central Oregon | I've been using a thumb pick for about a year. It demands that you learn a completely new style if you're used to a flat pick. Merle used a thumb pick & his index finger only, Chet used a thumb pick & one to three fingers, maybe all four, it's hard to tell. Both did a lot of pull-offs. Learning to play the bass line with my thumb while playing the melody with my fingers was the hardest part. At first it felt like my brain was splitting apart. I finally learned that the only way I could do it at first was to figure out which bass string my thumb was supposed to be picking & then decide what your fingers were supposed to be doing (if anything) & pick with my thumb & the appropriate finger at the same time & thumb only in between. I gave up trying to get the thumb working & then add the melody. I had to learn to do both at once, especially for the first half dozen songs I learned. Btw, this was a tip I got from Adamasguy (maybe Adamasplayer? Don't remember exactly) in Paris. The first thing I learned was Windy & Warm. I nearly drove myself (& my wife) crazy before I could play it. It got easier the more I did it. Then I learned Freight Train, Trambone, Chet's version of Col. Bogey's March (Bridge over the River Kwai theme), Wildwood Flower, etc. At this point I'm finally getting to where I can play my way through Yakkety Axe more often than not. It's a difficult technique to learn but once you get the basics it's just a matter of practice practice practice. Once you get where you can do thumbpick & finger rolls you can pick like hell without working too hard. There are lots of links to lessons & most of them are a help. Here's where I started-
ttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=45vrY1Q3S7I
I've watched most of Merle's clips many times & there are lots of videos of Chet, Marcel, Jerry Reed & many others. Sometimes I can catch what they're doing fairly quickly, sometimes it takes dozens of back up & look again, some I can't catch no matter what I've tried so far. YouTube is a terrific learning tool for the 'monkey see monkey do' guys like me. |
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Posts: 354
Location: nashville | I heard a interview w/Chet once where he was ask "how did you learn to play like that" Chet started picking out just the base line with his thumb and said "Spend hours doing just this" Then he played "Vincent"
Then I almost sold my guitar. |
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March 2002
Posts: 15682
Location: SoCal | I can fingerpick a few tunes using a flatpick and fingers. When I learn those kinds of tunes, I learn the thumb part and the fingers part together.
A lot of people call pattern picking "Travis Picking". Really, it's not.
Travis Picking, like a lot of Chet's stuff, is using a steady thumb on the bass strings while picking out the melody on the other four. To really do it right, you have to have independence between your thumb and your fingers. Your thumb has to maintain a steady rhythm while your fingers work the other strings. Tommy Emmanuel has an instruction video on how to do it, and basically, you need to sit there for several weeks, several hours a day, just doing the thumb thing, before even thinking about adding the fingers.
I don't and probably never will have that kind of independence. |
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March 2002
Posts: 1380
Location: Central Oregon | Something I did (& still do occasionally), is practice without a guitar. I get my thumb going & then think about which finger I'm going to move next- without letting my thumb stop. You don't have to move your fingers much at first, just a twitch is a start. I practiced like that while driving, reading, etc. You can do it holding a steering wheel or holding nothing at all. It doesn't matter which finger you move when either, it's being able to control your fingers while keeping your thumb going through the motions of picking the bass strings that is important.
It's not easy to learn & I'm not really good at it yet after a year of practicing an hour or two a day but it sure is fun once I started to get the hang of it. I could probably have learned it much faster 40 years ago, that is, if I could have seen how it was done back then. |
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Merle Travis-The REAL DEAL