Travis-Style Guitar from Scratch - Softcover

Bruce Emery

Softcover

ISBN 10: 097886090X ISBN 13: 9780978860905

Publisher: Charles Dumont & Sons, 2006

Synopsis

"Travis-picking" means that the thumb is responsible for laying down an alternating bassline while the fingers simultaneously add independent melody and harmony lines. Here s how we ll achieve our goal: We ll start with a simple alternating bass and we ll work on it until it becomes comfortable. Then we ll add small, successive complications that will feel uncomfortable at first, but we ll work them it until they become comfortable, before moving on to the next.

After some preliminary exercises, we get right into Six Songs You Know, two in each of three keys: Camptown Races, Oh! Susanna, Red River Valley, Will the Circle Be Unbroken, House of the Rising Sun and God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen, and much of the rest of book is devoted to revisiting these six songs at increasing levels of complexity (four levels in all). The first level is straightforward: All melody notes land squarely on the beat.

In the second level we add SYNCOPATION, where melody notes are shifted to the offbeat while keeping the bass ON the beat, and we tinker with adding a third alternate bass string. The third level introduces HARMONY in the form of picking pattern and other chord tones. And the fourth level throws in the faster eighth notes, walking basslines, slurs and other kinds of chord substitutions and tricks that will make your mother proud.

Sprinkled throughout the book are arrangements of other songs and song fragments: Frere Jacque, When the Saints Go Marching In, Ode to Joy, Simple Gifts, Buffalo Gals and Joshua Fit the Battle of Jericho, "Jingle Bells," "Yankee Doodle," "The Caissons Go Rolling Along" and "The Battle Hymn of the Republic." I know they re not very exciting, but at least you know how they're supposed to sound.
Table of Contents

Travistown
Solo Travis-Style fingerpicking
Fifth-string bass: The Am chord
Pinches
Sixth-string bass: The G chord
Scales over chords in the Key of G
Quarter note scales over chords
Camptown Races
Oh! Susanna
Scales over chords in the Key of C
Will the Circle Be Unbroken
Red River Valley
Songs in the Key of Am
Amtrack Blues
God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen
Triple alternating bass
House of the Rising Sun
Syncopation
Exercises
Frere Jacques
Amtrack Blues
Second pass through our favorites
Camptown Races
Oh! Susanna
Will the Circle Be Unbroken
Red River Valley
God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen
House of the Rising Sun
Picking patterns
When the Saints Go Marching In
Kicker notes
Chord tones
Third pass through our favorites
(same songs as the second pass)
Ode to Joy
Eighth notes
Joshua Fit the Battle of Jericho
Buffalo Gals
Simple Gifts
Bass runs
Slurs
Slurps
Fourth pass through our favorites (same songs as above)
New material
Jingle Bells
Yankee Doodle
The Caissons Go Rolling Along
Battle Hymn of the Republic
Key of A
Mystery Tunes in A
Key of E
Drop D Tuning
Parting gift

Edition details

• Publisher: Charles Dumont & Sons
• Publication date: 2006
• ISBN 10: 097886090X
• ISBN 13: 9780978860905
• Binding: Spiral-bound
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 85