travis picking vs fingerpicking

[macmanmatty]

I saw lots of threads on fingerstyle vs fingerpicking which I knew were just basically terms for the same thing. But what is the difference between travis picking and fingerpicking? If a play a song with a alternating bass and pick the melody is that travis picking? Does it have to have a pattern? If I throw in extra notes to make sort of a rhythm going on is it still travis picking? I pick some songs with an alternating bass using thumb and three fingers (index middle and ring) would that be travis picking? How often must the bass alternate in travis picking? Would the bass get four quarter notes in 4/4 time?

thanks

macmanmatty

[rick-slo]

Think of Travis as a variant of fingerstyle, one in which you play an alternating bass using the thumb (in 4/4 (2/4) timing) where the thumb hits the lower note on every beat. You can frill it up with other stuff to some extent but that basic thumb pattern is pretty solid.

[LouieAtienza]

FIngerstyle is just the fancy un-hokey sounding replacement for fingerpicking. The national fingerstyle competition used to be called the national fingerpicking competition. Was even a magazine called Fingerpicking.

[Cypress Knee]

Travis picking is much more complicated than an alternating bass with some type of pattern or melody on the treble strings. If you want to learn Travis picking, then I would suggest you order the Thom Bresh Homespun Lesson "The Real Merle Travis Guitar - Like Father Like Son". Travis was Thom's father and he learned straight from the man himself. Here is his short explanation of Travis picking:



If you have an hour, this is a fascinating and entertaining interview to watch regarding Merle Travis, his style, the Muhlenburg County guitar history and more:



Enjoy,

CK

[Pitar]

Originally Posted by macmanmatty

I saw lots of threads on fingerstyle vs fingerpicking which I knew were just basically terms for the same thing. But what is the difference between travis picking and fingerpicking? If a play a song with a alternating bass and pick the melody is that travis picking? Does it have to have a pattern? If I throw in extra notes to make sort of a rhythm going on is it still travis picking? I pick some songs with an alternating bass using thumb and three fingers (index middle and ring) would that be travis picking? How often must the bass alternate in travis picking? Would the bass get four quarter notes in 4/4 time?

thanks

macmanmatty

More terminology cryptology in play.

Generally, if you're plucking the strings with fingers it's fingerpicking. Some, who have this innate desire to categorize everything, will do so and hence the semantics. I think it might have something to do with elitism, meaning, there's an association between hayseeds and fingerpicking that surely must be dispelled so fingerstyle was conjured up to give some comfort to the more urbane in our midst. Fingerpicking, therefore, is incorrectly semanticized away from the more urbane choices in music such that distinction precludes undesirable association - I suppose.

When I started out in the early 70's it was flat picking and finger picking. Sometime between then and now the new fingerstyle semantic was generated, probably with the advent of forums such as this one, and it has caught on. But both the original and the neo-nomenclature for it remain interchangeable. Mel Bay had a book for learning the fingerpicking style of Merle Travis.

The style part of the technique is real insomuch as it relates to alternating, rolling, syncopated, etc. Fingerpicking encompasses all the expressive styles of the technique. Or, if cooties and heebie-geebies prevent utterance of that word, you have fingerstyle for comfort.

Whatever, I have to go now and fingerstyle my guitar.

[RustyAxe]

Originally Posted by Cypress Knee

T
If you have an hour, this is a fascinating and entertaining interview to watch regarding Merle Travis, his style, the Muhlenburg County guitar history and more:



Enjoy,

CK

I did! My lead guitarist recommended this vid some time back. I especially enjoyed the shorter vid you posted ... "this is a solo style, it doesn't need anyone else" ... classic!

[rick-slo]

The videos are Travis picking with other techniques thrown in. Merle Travis himself did more than play the Travis (alternating-base) picking pattern, as is true for most everyone else. If you lump that all together (the scale runs, the arpeggios, etc.) as Travis picking you lose the meaning of the term. Call it "Travis Plus Other Stuff".

[LouieAtienza]

Interestingly, I have a old copy of Fingerpicking magazine... featuring Thom Bresh!!

[macmanmatty]

Originally Posted by Cypress Knee

Travis picking is much more complicated than an alternating bass with some type of pattern or melody on the treble strings. If you want to learn Travis picking, then I would suggest you order the Thom Bresh Homespun Lesson "The Real Merle Travis Guitar - Like Father Like Son". Travis was Thom's father and he learned straight from the man himself. Here is his short explanation of Travis picking:


If you have an hour, this is a fascinating and entertaining interview to watch regarding Merle Travis, his style, the Muhlenburg County guitar history and more:



Enjoy,

CK

Great video now I know why Jerry reed's playing was so different, "You don't think terms of chords son"

[Mbroady]

Finger picking - using your Fingers
Picking - using a pick
Other alternatives
Forced air (fan) - great on cranked electrics for a limited, but cool effect
Teeth plucking - ala Jimmy Hendricks
E-bow - Electromagnetic (I think- never really used one)

Any others?

[JonPR]

Originally Posted by macmanmatty

If a play a song with a alternating bass and pick the melody is that travis picking? Does it have to have a pattern? If I throw in extra notes to make sort of a rhythm going on is it still travis picking?

Merle Travis didn't invent the style that has his name. It's a type of alternating bass. He just popularised it in the country music genre, for folks who had never heard of the people he got it from: players such as Blind Blake, Mississippi John Hurt, Blind Boy Fuller, etc.

Originally Posted by macmanmatty

I pick some songs with an alternating bass using thumb and three fingers (index middle and ring) would that be travis picking?

Strictly speaking no, because MT only used thumb and index! But who cares?
Most alternating bass pickers use thumb, index and middle. But you can use ring if you want. (Personally I tend to use middle and ring primarily, with index as spare.)

Originally Posted by macmanmatty

How often must the bass alternate in travis picking? Would the bass get four quarter notes in 4/4 time?

Yes. At least, that's one way it's notated.
And the bass would alternate - i.e., beats 1 and 3 are on a low bass string, beats 2 and 4 on a higher bass string. That's what defines the style (not just travis picking, but all alternating bass styles).

Sometimes it's notated in 2/2 or cut time, if the tempo is fast. The bass is still quarter notes, but the beat count is in half notes. I.e., a metronome would click on 1 and 3, the lower bass note.
Other times it might be notated in 4/4 (or more likely) 2/4, but with the bass notes as 8ths.
It really just depends on how you naturally feel the beat - is every bass note a count, or just the lower bass notes? (and this only matters if you're notating it anyway.... )

The other critical thing is that the thumb is normally regular, marking out the beats. The fingers fill in melodically or with other chord tones, on or off the beat. However, one distinctive thing about MT's own style was he would often play cross rhythms with the thumb, sometimes sweep picking arpeggios with his thumb. You sometimes hear this kind of thing in Blind Blake, but MT developed it to a high degree. There are plenty of youtubes where you can see him doing amazing things almost entirely with his thumb, just the index in support, the other 3 fingers resting on the scratchplate.

[Bikewer]

Classical guitar method is fingerpicking. So is much of "Latin" guitar playing. I play fingerstyle jazz using essentially classical-guitar technique... What would that be?

To me, learning folkie fingerpicking back in the mid-70s, everyone called it "Travis Picking" but it was much more based on the type of playing being done by Dylan, PPM, and various other folk artists.
This was for the most part "Three finger" (thumb and two finger) pattern picking, with whatever embellishments the player was capable of throwing in.

In more recent years I've been using classical technique (usually on nylon strings) to play jazz chords and chord-melody lines.

[ljguitar]

Originally Posted by macmanmatty

…How often must the bass alternate in travis picking? Would the bass get four quarter notes in 4/4 time?

Hi mmm

Yes, a main characteristic of Travis Picking is the relentless alternating bass on every beat.

I'm not sure Travis Picking is a copyrighted term, nor that well defined. It's in the style of Merle Travis.

And I know people who play it like Merle did with the Thumb-n-1 finger, and others who use Thumb-n-2 fingers or Thumb-n-3 fingers to play it, and it still sounds like Travis Picking.

It's kind of like Cotten picking which is named after Elizabeth Cotten, who played a conventional guitar flipped upside down - so her thumb played what my fingers play and her finger played the notes my thumb plays. I know a lot of players who play Cotten Picking style but only ever met one who flipped his guitar upside down to play it like her.

[Riverwolf]

Originally Posted by Mbroady

Teeth plucking - ala Jimmy Hendricks

Dumb. Period.
Playing behind ones back. Also dumb.
Playing upside down, mostly dumb.
Playing a beat up guitar like Trigger. Dumb. Unless you are Willie Nelson...
OK, then it is still kinda dumb. You got the money, buy a new guitar...
Like rich women wearing jeans with holes and slits in them...
Wait, sorry, what was this thread about?

[LouieAtienza]

Originally Posted by ljguitar

Hi mmm

Yes, a main characteristic of Travis Picking is the relentless alternating bass on every beat.

I'm not sure Travis Picking is a copyrighted term, nor that well defined. It's in the style of Merle Travis.

And I know people who play it like Merle did with the Thumb-n-1 finger, and others who use Thumb-n-2 fingers or Thumb-n-3 fingers to play it, and it still sounds like Travis Picking.

It's kind of like Cotten picking which is named after Elizabeth Cotten, who played a conventional guitar flipped upside down - so her thumb played what my fingers play and her finger played the notes my thumb plays. I know a lot of players who play Cotten Picking style but only ever met one who flipped his guitar upside down to play it like her.

Dick Dale played his guitar strung upside down...