Fingerstyle Lesson #3 - Intro to Travis Picking

This is a very (relatively) simple lesson on "Travis Picking", a style of playing guitar popularized by Country musician Merle Travis. Our example is a very repetitive pattern and not too much like a real Merle Travis guitar part but it will get you started with the concept.

One very important element is that we have your right hand thumb playing on each downbeat. It is alternating between the "Root" and the "Fifth" of the chord with the roots on beats "One and "Three" and the 5ths on beats "Two" and "Four". Everything else in the pattern is played by the other fingers and like our other fingerstyle lessons you want to "assign" fingers to specific strings...



Click here for a printable version of this lesson.





A little of the real thing if you're interested: