Basic Travis Picking

Intermediate Grade 5 Folk Fingerstyle
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View the full lesson at Basic Travis Picking | JustinGuitar

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After a lot of practice, i can not control my fingers. When you get near advanced level, you can solo, make music, etc. And here comes picking with fingers, absolute misery.
I guess i need to stay with my trusty pick.
I’ve tried a lot of picking techniques which includes fingers like travis, hybrid, chat atkins style, fingerpicking. They don’t work for me.
Simple truth, when you start learning, what you love, you can progress fast, or at tolerable speed. When the stuff is not for you, you can absolutely feel it. It’s like lifting a car. It’s not for everybody, some people can do it, some will never. I guess the car lifting is like those pickings when you are using your fingers is not for me.

Sorry, English is not my first language.
The lessons are great and detailed.

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I can relate, my fingers are so stiff :joy:

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I find this lesson very frustrating. Combining a difficult barre chord with a base note finger change while trying to learn a new finger-picking pattern seems anathema to Justin’s core teaching philosophy. I don’t seem to be doing anything but get intensely frustrated and sore.

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I have to say @Expat, I agree. It feels a bit as if two rather difficult things are mixed up… It would be good focussing on one quite difficult issue and then focussing on the next.

Now, given that this lesson is allocated to Grade 5, Justin has of course good reason to assume that practicing barre chords is desired as well.

Have you started to learn and practice Travis picking with open chords? That’s most definitely where I will start :slightly_smiling_face:

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I’m surprised that Justin uses barre chords at all to demonstrate Travis picking. I’m not a super expert, but I have done a decent amount of Travis picking and I don’t think I’ve ever seen anybody playing a blues/folk/rockabilly/country song using an A-shaped barre chord with Travis picking. Especially for a C chord, which has an easy open shape (you still have to alternate your ring finger between the 5th and 6th strings, though).

I suppose the Tommy Emmanuel version of Freight Train has Dm and G barre chords (I’m sure there are many other examples), but it is a bit odd that Justin is using barre chord grips in this introductory lesson.

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Whoops. I am somewhere around grade 4 perhaps. I missed that bit. yep, it’s too advanced for me. I use Travis picking (or various versions) for other open and barre chords, but the A-shape is still hard (probably been lazy and not working on it enough and avoid songs with B).
I guess should work on an open C with my ring finger going up and down on the bass note. I am not sure what other chords make sense with a moving finger for the bass note.
I can play songs like Jolene and Dust in the Wind with a “static” finger picking. TBH, I am not quite sure what makes a pattern Travis and what makes it a simple finger picking style.

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Any chord that has a 5th string root, you will generally use the 6th string, same fret, for the alternating bass. B7 comes to mind. Also the D7 using the C7 form, which Justin shows later in the video. (BTW, as Justin shows, the C7 is a movable shape if you don’t include the high-e string in the picking pattern). The open A and Am chords have the open 5th string as the root and (usually) use the open 6th string at the alternating bass.

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There are a couple finger style songs that Im learning on acoustic guitar; Dust-in -the wind, Babe I’m gonna leave you and Landslide. I find that I can play them very well if I keep the tempo slow (50% tempo). But Im not able to progress past that. I dont see the point in speeding up if the song falls apart. Any advice?

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You don’t say how long you’ve been working on them, but fingerpicking patterns just need tons of repetition until you don’t have to think about them at all. It’s one of those things you can do in front of the TV / Youtube etc.

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That’s interesting to hear!
Good question above on how long you tried yet.

Me, I was able to slowly increase the speed over time, but practicing almost daily (often only 5 minutes per item)
Of course, there were days, or sometimes even periods where I stood still or eeven went a bit backwards speed-wise, but could generally improve in the long run.

Did you also use the metronome and slowly increase the speed during a session? Like starting a bit below of what you’re able to do and slowly increasing?
I then always went a bit higher and really try to be faster until there were errors and to finish went back to a nice speed.

If that doesn’t work for you, maybe add another session where you try a pattern in the same rhythm, but a bit simplified and speed this one up?

I don’t know… I was always trying to find ways to change practicing a bit if I didn’t improve like I felt I should or could.

But … to be honest, I am never really fast, more of a slow player :slight_smile:
And I worked early on “Dust-in -the wind” and I remember it took me a long time to increase the speed. Don’t even remember it all anymore, because it’s so long ago. Dropped it unfortunately, because I didn’t feel I could sing it well enough, but it helped me quite a bit with fingerpicking.