How To Travis Pick On Guitar - AWESOME FINGERPICKING PATTERN

so in this video lesson i want to go over one of the most commonly used finger picking patterns especially for folk music singer songwriter type music and that's called travis picking so let's go over that in this lesson video now travis picking is a very well known finger-picking pattern named after merle travis who is a very good guitar virtuoso and what it does is it highlights alternate alternating bass lines along with other melody lines in the treble notes of the guitar it sounds like this so if you think of songs think of a song like landslide you could use traffic picking isn't used on the inside but you could use it all right think of something like that or think of dust in the wind just a couple songs for you guys to put that in your head this is how common this is it's used in popular music used a lot in folk music and what we're going to do in this lesson is go over the very basics of travis picking how to get through the pattern how to apply it to different chords so that you can use it on your favorite songs let's get into the lesson so i'm going to teach you guys over a simple chord progression i'm going to use g e minor cd i always like playing things over chord progressions because it makes it more applicable for you guys to understand when you go to play songs so the travis picking pattern features an alternating bass line so when we're playing something like a g chord our thumb is going to be alternating between the sixth string and the fourth string on the quarter notes one two three four one two three four and it does this for all six string chords okay like an e minor chord same thing six four six four six four six four now when we go to a five string chord like a c chord an e minor chord a b minor chord any of those five string chords we're gonna be alternating the bass line between the fifth string and the fourth string so it's gonna be one two three four one two three four and then when we go to our four string chords like our d d minor d sevens all right whenever we play a four-string chord we're gonna be alternating between the fourth and the third string so we are going to have to adjust our right hand down so it's gonna be four three okay all on the quarter notes one two three four one two three four now the other fingers are going to play notes in between this bass line that's why it's important just to get the bass line down and the timing of that first now the actual timing and rhythm of travis picking is going to be one two and three and four and one two and three and four m one two and three m four m if you're liking this video and you haven't subscribed to the channel yet i highly encourage you to subscribe now and turn your notifications on so you know when i release more videos just like this one so let's start with our g chord and i'm going to show you what's going to happen with these other three fingers let's get these set up we're mainly going to be using these two fingers for this lesson the index finger and the middle finger the first finger is going to own the third string your g string the second finger is going to own the b string of the guitar and they're never going to move until we get to the d when we get to the d string everything's just gonna have to shift down one string so the first finger will be on the second string and then the second finger will be on the high e string okay that's the only adjustment you have to be aware of is when we go to those four string chords when you're playing between five and six string chords you don't have to make that adjustment the adjustment is done with the thumb all right so let's start with the g string so i'm going to get myself set up first so my thumb is going to be on the top string first finger and second finger are going to be on the g and b strings okay and we're going to start so here's our alternating bass line right one two three four right okay so it's going to be thumb thumb first finger okay one two and thumb thumb one thumb thumb one okay so we're alternating the bass line okay don't forget that thumb thumb one now the outside strings thumb two inside strings thumb one what do i mean by that the wide strings versus the inside strings outside strings inside string so six string second string fourth string third string so it's going to be thumb thumb one thumb two thumb one all right so the first half is thumb thumb one thumb thumb one thumb thumb one one more time some someone now the second half is thumb to thumb one thumb two thumb one couple more times thumb two thumb one last time thumb two thumb one now we're gonna put those together thumb thumb one thumb two thumb one thumb thumb one thumb two thumb one thumb thumb one thumb two thumb one now if i go to an e minor chord it's the same thing [Music] okay nothing has changed between a g chord and an e minor all i've done is just change the chord but my picking hand is doing the same exact thing where the change comes is when we go to a c chord now we're alternating between five and four okay so it's going to be thumb thumb one thumb two thumb one same pattern though thumb [Music] and now we're going to go down to the d chord so remember we're going to adjust our whole hand down so our thumb is going to be playing four three [Music] four three four three thumb thumb one thumb two thumb one thumb thumb one thumb to someone thumb [Music] so let me go in for a close-up real quick before i play through this full chord progression for you guys if you guys are interested in learning more about finger picking and travis picking and how to put in walk downs and little like embellishments and hammer ons and stuff into your playing check out my finger picking 101 guitar course i'll put a link in the description below with a special discount code just for my youtube viewers so here i am for close-ups so you guys can see here's my guitar okay so g i'm alternating between six and five okay see i'm alternating between five and four and d i'm alternating between three and four four and three sorry four and three okay so we have g thumb thumb one outside strings inside strings now you can see what i mean these ones are on the outside these ones are on the inside so thumb thumb one thumb two thumb one thumb thumb one thumb two thumb one now e minor thumb thumb one thumb two thumb one same thing thumb thumb one thumb two thumb one and then we have a c chord so alternating between five and four thumb thumb one [Music] so i'm gonna do now is i'm gonna place over a chord progression for you guys this way you can try practicing and playing along with me it's gonna be g twice e minor twice c twice and d twice so here it goes it's one two and three and four m thumb thumb one thumb two thumb one thumb thumb one thumb two thumb one one two and three and four and two and three and four and c two and three and four and thumb thumb one thumb two thumb one d two and three and four let's do it again back to g thumb one two and three e minor and c [Music] d [Music] there you go let me just show you a little bit faster because sometimes they're travis picking songs they can be very quick so you'd get one two three four and hear that's very beautiful sounding song all right and you can do all these other embellishments and hammer on stuff which i'm not going to get into in this video if you want that you can go check out that finger picking course but these are the basics and it's a great way to folk up any song even if it's a rock song you can turn it into a folk song it's really great it works for a lot of songs go practice with different chords take your time with this and as soon as you have it down apply it to as many songs as you possibly can and have as much fun with it as possible hope you guys enjoyed this video don't forget to subscribe to my channel and turn your notifications on so you know when i release more lessons just like this youtube's gonna pop up a couple more lessons over there maybe go check one of those out and i'll see you guys in another lesson video

Channel: Lauren Bateman

Views: 90,103

Rating: 4.9428573 out of 5

Keywords: lauren bateman guitar lessons, lauren bateman, how to travis pick on guitar, lauren bateman fingerpicking, how to travis pick for beginners, how to travis picking, how to travis pick g chord, how to travis pick a d chord, how to play travis picking on guitar, how to play the travis picking pattern, learn travis picking guitar, learn travis picking for beginners, travis picking for beginners, travis picking lesson, travis picking patterns, travis picking tutorial, merle travis

Id: wvUG7AyZ4aw

Length: 10min 46sec (646 seconds)

Published: Wed Jan 27 2021