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Old 11-23-2020, 08:48 PM
LesterRoadhog LesterRoadhog is offline
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Default Advice for going beyond the basics in finger picking (Townes Van Zandt style)

I have been a strummer my whole life, but I am now learning how to fingerpick. The sound I am going for is early Townes Van Zandt: alternating bass line and walkups with the thumb, while your fingers pick out the melody.

I'm getting to where I can do finger picking patterns while singing, but doing the same pattern with my fingers or varying between a few different patterns sounds very different from what Townes does, which is having the fingers follow along with the melody rather than repeating a pattern.

Do you have any tips for working on this style? I feel that with the style I am doing now (using my fingers either by either pinching with the thumb or on the and beat) my thumb and fingers are much more connected than they are in the style I am aiming for.

I've found a few tutorials of songs I would like to learn to play like "Pancho and Lefty" and I can follow measure by measure, but putting it all together is much harder than having my fingers follow the same pattern, and I feel like there is some piece of the puzzle I'm missing.

Is it just matter a playing a lot? Any tips on what I should practice? Thanks for any advice!
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Old 11-23-2020, 10:20 PM
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TBman TBman is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by LesterRoadhog View Post
I have been a strummer my whole life, but I am now learning how to fingerpick. The sound I am going for is early Townes Van Zandt: alternating bass line and walkups with the thumb, while your fingers pick out the melody.

I'm getting to where I can do finger picking patterns while singing, but doing the same pattern with my fingers or varying between a few different patterns sounds very different from what Townes does, which is having the fingers follow along with the melody rather than repeating a pattern.

Do you have any tips for working on this style? I feel that with the style I am doing now (using my fingers either by either pinching with the thumb or on the and beat) my thumb and fingers are much more connected than they are in the style I am aiming for.

I've found a few tutorials of songs I would like to learn to play like "Pancho and Lefty" and I can follow measure by measure, but putting it all together is much harder than having my fingers follow the same pattern, and I feel like there is some piece of the puzzle I'm missing.

Is it just matter a playing a lot? Any tips on what I should practice? Thanks for any advice!

I watched Pancho and Lefty on youtube. It's alternating bass.

Just relax and practice slowly.

Mark Hanson has a couple of good books on Travis Picking which is alternating bass like Zandt is playing.
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Old 11-24-2020, 06:31 AM
davidbeinct davidbeinct is offline
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Toby Walker has a series of videos called Learning How to Fingerpick. He starts you with Oh, Susanna which everyone knows the melody to, and you play an alternating bass with that melody on top. From there he moves into various blues with alternating bass and melody played on the top strings.

https://www.tobywalkerslessons.com/s...ingerpick.html
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Old 11-24-2020, 08:50 AM
pickinray pickinray is offline
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Here's the Youtube link to Pancho and Lefty:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zprRZ2wFQD4

As Barry says, it's alternating bass ("Travis" picking). If you look closely at how TVZ is playing, his fingers don't do a whole lot. The thumb drives the song and the fingers add the embellishments. Try not to get hung up on patterns. Keep the alternating bass going with your thumb and fill in the spaces with your fingers. Practice it slowly at first and you'll get the idea.

Here's a link to a video lesson from Bruce Cockburn on his fingerpicking style, which also heavily uses alternating bass:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fCtf_BJ9WUo

Good luck and have fun!
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Old 11-25-2020, 07:40 AM
charles Tauber charles Tauber is offline
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Last edited by charles Tauber; 11-26-2020 at 11:47 PM.
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