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Old 06-14-2018, 08:22 PM
Zion33 Zion33 is offline
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Lightbulb How to transition between Travis picking and general rock tempo?

Hey, so I play solo fingerstyle guitar, I want to refine my act and get live, I have many good fingerstyle songs at one tempo, but I also like to play moderate blues rock riffs/honky tonk, how can I piece these together?

Sometimes if I smash the last chord to a fingerstyle song then progress into a moderate riff it sounds okay, but there must be a better way, what do the cunning and crafty players do?

I must say it's a bit disappointing having many great pieces that can't be tied together into an act.. there must be a way.

Pretty sure it's all in 4/4*
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Old 06-14-2018, 09:25 PM
JimCA JimCA is offline
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Originally Posted by Zion33 View Post
Hey, so I play solo fingerstyle guitar, I want to refine my act and get live, I have many good fingerstyle songs at one tempo, but I also like to play moderate blues rock riffs/honky tonk, how can I piece these together?

Sometimes if I smash the last chord to a fingerstyle song then progress into a moderate riff it sounds okay, but there must be a better way, what do the cunning and crafty players do?

I must say it's a bit disappointing having many great pieces that can't be tied together into an act.. there must be a way.

Pretty sure it's all in 4/4*
https://www.amazon.com/Power-Pluckin...power+plucking

Just got this -- looks interesting. Not sure if this is the answer for you, but it gave me some new perspective.
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Old 06-15-2018, 08:36 AM
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KevWind KevWind is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Zion33 View Post
Hey, so I play solo fingerstyle guitar, I want to refine my act and get live, I have many good fingerstyle songs at one tempo, but I also like to play moderate blues rock riffs/honky tonk, how can I piece these together?

Sometimes if I smash the last chord to a fingerstyle song then progress into a moderate riff it sounds okay, but there must be a better way, what do the cunning and crafty players do?

I must say it's a bit disappointing having many great pieces that can't be tied together into an act.. there must be a way.

Pretty sure it's all in 4/4*
First , I do not play fingerstyle so I will speak to some possible thoughts to consider for general performance interest building , as opposed to any specific technique suggestions
So are you talking about plying a finger style piece and finishing that then playing a different blues rock tune ? Or using both techniques within a single song ?
The latter will have to evolve from significant amount of experimentation and practice . (and I would think could easily be overdone in any single performance )

The first situation is probably easier to pull off . First remember that "tempo" is something you decide upon , and there can be some fairly significant latitude i.e variation.
So you might start off some slow tempo finger style then after a couple tunes play some faster ones or play a slower finger style but on the last one keep increasing the tempo and then make a flare of the last chord (as you mentioned ) then move right into the first rock piece ( no rest in between) . Then play a few rock tunes then slow the last one down perhaps even with a finger style outro. Then more finger style etc.

Then perhaps in the second or third set, change gears again and instead of blending and flowing one technique into the other,,,, make the change an obvious feature , perhaps have two guitars and play a few finger style tunes on one, then stop and change guitars.

just some thoughts
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Last edited by KevWind; 06-15-2018 at 08:59 AM.
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Old 06-15-2018, 06:15 PM
mastercaster mastercaster is offline
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Originally Posted by JimCA View Post
https://www.amazon.com/Power-Pluckin...power+plucking

Just got this -- looks interesting. Not sure if this is the answer for you, but it gave me some new perspective.
Thanks for this link. Can't believe with all my searching and awareness of Musicians Institute I hadn't run across it. I already Travis Pick and have been looking for other rock finger styles.

To the OP,I know what you mean. I find that though most of my Travis patterns are in 4/4 they are 16th note rhythms and the transition to strumming, particularly 1/8 subdivisions, can make it sound like I switched to half time. A lot of the old Honky Tonk and Rockabilly strums have a 16th note feel.
I hope that makes sense.

I just finished a Truefire course by Corey Congilio called the Acoustic Rhythm Playbook. It starts with some 16th note strums then adds rests, dotted notes, riffs. arpeggios,other techniques and then combines then in different progression, Great course. Might be worth checking out.

https://truefire.com/acoustic-guitar...playbook/c1220

Also a couple of books I plan to check out.

https://jeffreypepperrodgers.com/beyond-strumming/

http://www.fundamental-changes.com/b...rhythm-guitar/
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Old 06-15-2018, 08:23 PM
Zion33 Zion33 is offline
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Originally Posted by KevWind View Post
"just some thoughts"
Yeah cheers, upon further looking into this I think it's better to just stay in time for the more serious performances, you can break the tempo and branch out into these honky tonk boogies but once you break the tempo you gotta use the unexplained aspects of music, not the "theory" but rather the "magic" to get the feel right, it can be done, it is possible but you gotta work it and get darn creative because no text book will teach it.

I just wasn't aware, I thought I could piece together anything at will and it would work right away.

Cheers all, and hey interesting looking book there.
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Old 06-27-2018, 09:52 AM
gfirob gfirob is offline
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Zion33's advice is very good. If I were you I would listen to other fingerpickers whose basic technique is similar to Merle Travis, but whose tempo and style is very different. This would include Steven Stills, John Fahey, Mississippi John Hurt Leo Kottke and others. I'd forget about time signatures and theory. Syncopated fingerpicking can actually be kind of claustrophobic if you don't find a way to break out of that rhythmic structure. So listen to these other players and see how they explore these issues.
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