Tackling Travis Picking
Travis picking is a finger style technique used in country and folk music that combines an arpeggio with a moving bass line playing the root and 5th of the chord. Travis picking is named after Merle Travis who was a famous country music guitarist who played on thousands of recordings.
To learn this tricky technique you first have to develop independent movement between your plucking thumb and fingers. To do this start with the simple exercise below where the fingers pluck two strings for each pluck that the thumb does.
Using the A chord the thumb (P) will act as the bass player plucking the A string (the root of the chord) and then the E string (the 5th of the chord). At the same time the index (I) and middle (M) fingers will pluck the G and B strings.
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A Chord Arpeggios | Download |
To make this sound more interesting we will vary the strings plucked with fingers moving them to the B and E strings as the thumb moves to the low E string. You can pluck the B and E strings with the index (I) and middle (M) fingers or with the middle (M) and ring (A) fingers.
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A Chord Arpeggios | Download |
Travis Picking Pattern
With a real Travis picking pattern the arpeggio played by the fingers will play a different rhythm compared to the bass being played by the thumb. This is known as a hemiola with a rhythm of 3 being played over a rhythm of 2 or 4. Try the pattern below starting slow to get the plucking order correct. Once you’ve got the pattern flowing practice it with a metronome a slow tempo of 70 BPM before speeding it up.
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A Chord Arpeggios | Download |
Once you’ve got your Travis picking flowing with the A chord try it on other chords such as D G and C. With the C chord it becomes a bit more difficult as finger 3 moves from fret 3 on the A string to fret 3 on the low E string.
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D Chord Arpeggios | Download |
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G Chord Arpeggios | Download |
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C Chord Arpeggios | Download |
To bring it all together try playing the intro to Don’t Think Twice Its All Right by Bob Dylan which uses Travis picking throughout. Watch out for the F bar chord and the bass line movement in the A minor chord where the little finger plays a G note on fret 3 of the low E string.
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Don’t Think Twice Intro | Download |
There are lots of songs that use Travis picking including Country Roads by John Denver, Dear Prudence by The Beatles and The Boxer by Simon and Garfunkle. You can also apply this technique to any song or combination of chords to create that country/folk sound.