brosblues
Verified buyer
06/06/26
Useful for Rockabilly!
Another well-taught and structured course by Jason Loughlin on a topic that is not easy for me. Jason's examples and exercises are helping to improve my facility in Travis Picking.
Focus On: Travis Picking
Essential insight and practices for mastering travis picking on guitar
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About this course
Few guitarists, if any, have had more impact on fingerstyle guitar than Merle Travis. Acknowledged as one of the most influential American guitarists of the 20th century, Merle's unique guitar style inspired Chet Atkins, Scotty Moore, Earl Hooker, Marcel Dadi, Thom Bresh (Merle's son), Tommy Emmanuel and the list goes on and on.
In turn, all of these masters infused their own genius into the Travis Picking to evolve the technique and influence generation after generation of fingerstyle players. Yet, trace it all back to its source and you'll find Merle's original Travis Picking at ground zero.
Today, its unthinkable to advance your skills as a fingerstyle guitarist without having a solid grip on Travis Picking, if only as a rite of passage. You owe it to yourself and we all owe it to Merle Travis. Fortunately your journey will be an enjoyable one with Jason Loughlin as your guide and his Focus On: Travis Picking course as your road map.
Jason organized his curriculum into three sections. In the first section, Jason takes you to school here with a little history on Travis Picking, a rundown of the style's most influential players (required listening!) and sound advise on gear and tone. Before taking on any new style or technique, its important to appreciate the background of that style or technique.
Strap on your guitar for Section 2, as Jason guides you through the nine essential Concepts and Techniques that comprise the foundation of Travis Picking. You'll play your way through these nine key learnings: Common Chord Shapes, Building I, IV, V Progressions, Rhythmic Coordination and Strength Drills, Travis Picking, Walking Bass Line Fills, Chord Substitutions, Chord Inversions, Chord Embellishments, and Travis Rolls.
It all gets put into play with the seven Performance Studies in Section 3. Jason specifically designed these studies to apply all nine essential Concepts and Techniques in a musical context. Get a solid grip on these nine studies and you'll possess ample Travis Picking skills: Travis Picking Primer, Walkin' Impressions, Substitution Teacher, Window Dressing, Spell Check, Leading Roll and The Kitchen Sink.
Jason demonstrates all of the performance studies over rhythm tracks and then breaks them down measure-by-measure, technique-by-technique.
All of the key demonstrations, performances and examples are tabbed and notated for your practice, reference and study purposes. You'll also get Guitar Pro files so that you can loop and/or slow any section down as you work through the lessons. Plus, Jason generously includes all of the rhythm tracks for you to work with on your own.
Grab your guitar and let's start your Travis Picking journey!
In turn, all of these masters infused their own genius into the Travis Picking to evolve the technique and influence generation after generation of fingerstyle players. Yet, trace it all back to its source and you'll find Merle's original Travis Picking at ground zero.
Today, its unthinkable to advance your skills as a fingerstyle guitarist without having a solid grip on Travis Picking, if only as a rite of passage. You owe it to yourself and we all owe it to Merle Travis. Fortunately your journey will be an enjoyable one with Jason Loughlin as your guide and his Focus On: Travis Picking course as your road map.
Jason organized his curriculum into three sections. In the first section, Jason takes you to school here with a little history on Travis Picking, a rundown of the style's most influential players (required listening!) and sound advise on gear and tone. Before taking on any new style or technique, its important to appreciate the background of that style or technique.
Strap on your guitar for Section 2, as Jason guides you through the nine essential Concepts and Techniques that comprise the foundation of Travis Picking. You'll play your way through these nine key learnings: Common Chord Shapes, Building I, IV, V Progressions, Rhythmic Coordination and Strength Drills, Travis Picking, Walking Bass Line Fills, Chord Substitutions, Chord Inversions, Chord Embellishments, and Travis Rolls.
It all gets put into play with the seven Performance Studies in Section 3. Jason specifically designed these studies to apply all nine essential Concepts and Techniques in a musical context. Get a solid grip on these nine studies and you'll possess ample Travis Picking skills: Travis Picking Primer, Walkin' Impressions, Substitution Teacher, Window Dressing, Spell Check, Leading Roll and The Kitchen Sink.
Jason demonstrates all of the performance studies over rhythm tracks and then breaks them down measure-by-measure, technique-by-technique.
All of the key demonstrations, performances and examples are tabbed and notated for your practice, reference and study purposes. You'll also get Guitar Pro files so that you can loop and/or slow any section down as you work through the lessons. Plus, Jason generously includes all of the rhythm tracks for you to work with on your own.
Grab your guitar and let's start your Travis Picking journey!
What you'll learn
- Use hyperextended finger positions to cover multiple strings
- Execute complex timing coordination with melody notes on upbeats against steady bass
- Interchange different dominant chord voicings over the same progression
- Understand the history and context of Travis picking
- Develop coordination through Travis picking drills
Release date: 12/14/2014 • 1h 30m runtime
Sample lessons
Travis Picking Patterns
Concept 4
Chord Embellishments
Concept 8
Walkin' Impressions
Overview
Walkin' Impressions
Performance
What's included
37 lessons • 17 charts • 7 Jam Tracks
Focus On: Travis Picking
In this Focus On Course, we'll be working through the techniques and concepts of Travis picking. What is Travis picking? Travis picking is a style of guitar playing that maintains an alternating bass line while playing a melody on the top three strings. The technique got it's name from the great Merle Travis and was later pioneered by mister guitar himself, Chet Atkins. Maybe you have never Travis picked before, or maybe you already know a basic Travis picking pattern but have never been able to make the leap to what players like Merle Travis, Chet Atkins and Brian Setzer do with it. That's what Travis picking course is designed to help you accomplish. You will learn key techniques and concepts to help you understand some of the most common ins and outs of travis picking. You'll have backing tracks, notation and tab for everything in the course. Let's get pickin'.
SECTION 1: Background
In this section we'll discuss the key players who associated with travis picking guitar. I'll even include a list of well known travis pickers. I encourage you to seek out their work and listen to as much as possible. I'll also discuss tone and gear. This is all so subjective but I can at least tell you the common tone goals and what kind of gear will help you get a lot of clarity out of you travis picking. Their so many varibles. If you discover a player who's tone you really love, try to find out his or her's setup, type of instrument, picks.... and try to emulate them. The more you do this the more you'll be able to pick and choose when honing in your sound.
History and Players
Travis picking gets it's name from Merle Travis. It's a style of picking that seems to be loosly based on stride piano. The thumb keeps a steady alternating bass line while the fingers fill in melody notes on the top three strings. Merle's style is the center stone of Chet Atkins genius. Chet took what Merle was doing and brought it to a new level of sophistication and technicality. His love for Andre Segovia and ability to incorporate classical guitar techniques added a whole new vocabulary to travis picking. An influence on travis picking that's not talked about enough is country blues. Mississippi John Hurt, Elizabeth Cotton and Big Bill Broonzy influence on the style is easily heard in Scotty Moore's playing with Elvis and Paul Burlison's playing with Johnny Burnette. We can thank Brian Setzer for rekindling the fire for rockabilly music and travis picking. More modern players like Tommy Emmanuel have been taking travis picking to all new hieghts and has marked his place in elite group of great pickers.
Tones and Gear
As far as tone goes, I try to use a good clean tone. You want the clarity and nuance of the picking to come out. Some player prefer to play this stlye strickly on acoustic for that very reason. If you're a more of a Chet Atkins or Rockabilly fan you may prefer an electric. It really doesn't matter a great deal as long as you're getting a good clear tone out of the instrument. The only effects that are associated with travis picking are slapback echo and reverb. Any delay pedal is capable of giving you a good slapback. You want to dial in one short repeat. This style is known for using a thumb pick. While it will help you get a very clear and strong attach with your bass notes it's not mandatory that you play with a thumb pick. What kind of thumb pick you use is up to you. Try a bunch before settling. Also, try a bunch of the same sizes. Not all mediums fit the same. Make sure it fits snug without cutting off circulation.
SECTION 2: Essential Concepts
Travis picking can be traced right back to ragtime piano. The steady alternating bassline echos the left hand of a stride pianist. This style gets it's name from the great Merle Travis. Though, he was not the inventor. Mose Rager, Merle's teacher back in Kentucky is credited from developing the thumb pick style. You can also hear this style's roots in Elizabeth Cotten's guitar playing. The style streches across genres and can be heard in country blues by players like Mississippi John Hurt, to Rockabilly Scotty Moore and Brian Setzer to country. Chet Atkins adopted the style and brought it to a level sophistication that is still unmatched. Torch barers like Tommy Emmanuel and Doyle Dykes have keep it's popularity alive while establishing their own voice and mark within the style.
Common Chord Shapes
I've provided you with three common shapes that will let you play a bunch of travis picking tunes. In the section you'll learn a Dom 13th, Dom 7th and Dom 9th chord shape. They are all movable shapes. Which means once you know where the roots are you can put them in any key. We will use them throughout the course.
Building I, IV, V Progressions
I'll give you three approaches to easily locate the I, IV and V chord in a key. The single string approached lets us find the root of the I, IV and V chord all on one string. You can do this off of any string. Find the Root of the key and move up two whole steps and a half step. That's 5 frets higher. We call that distance a fourth. This is our IV chord. Our V chord is always a whole step higher. That's 2 frets higher. The 6th string approach means we are starting with our root on the 6th string and trying to stay in position for the IV and V chords. So instead of jumping around on one string I'm going to look for the IV chord on the 5th string. It's super simple to find. The IV chord is directly underneath on the root on the 5th string. The V chord is always a whole step higher. The 5th string approach has us starting with our I chord's root on the 5th string. Now we're going to look for the closest IV chord. You'll find this by moving your I chord root down a whole step(2 frets) and then moving straight up to the 6th string. The V chord is a whole step higher(2 frets).
+ 30 more lessons
Reviews
16 results
petew1108
Verified buyer
03/06/25
Great lessons to up your Travis Picking game!
Great stuff! I've been looking to get my Travis Picking game going, and this course seems to be the perfect on-ramp for it. Keep up the good work!
rokcabilly
Verified buyer
01/24/25
Jason Loughlin is the man!
Jason Loughlin is an awesome teacher! I have all of the rockabilly lessons he has on Truefire as well as the Surf lesson. They are all easy to follow and Jason explains everything in detail. Great lessons!
kyushukev1
Verified buyer
05/15/24
Picking and Grinning
I had purchased Walter Broes 's Rock, Billy & Boogie Guidebook, and as he uses Travis picking I wanted to get a better understanding of the technique. Jason walks you through step by step, and while I'm at the beginning, it looks like an amazing course from a great teacher.
johnnymojo
Verified buyer
03/22/23
Recommended for country and rockabilly.
Good intermediate style course
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