C ountry fingerpicking evolved

primarily from o technique developed by

black tradition01 guitarists who, early in

this century, sought to imitate the stride

and barrelhouse piano styles of the day.

That was the beginning of an innovative,

ear-catching guitar style. Through the

years various guitarists, both black and

white, have developed this approach into

a distinctive and vital form. It has been

used by folk, blues, country, and rock

players, and a list of the practitioners of

this guitar creates a veritable Who’s Who

of the guitar world: Mississippi John Hurt,

Dot Watson, Merle Travis, Chet Atkins,

John Fahey, Leo Kottke, and others.

Down to its basics, this fingerpicking

style (in country circles it’s often called

“Travis-style” picking) can be described

this way: The thumb plays a steady, rhyth-

mic bass (usually playing the sixth, fifth, and fourth strings) while the index and middle fingers pick the melody notes on the high strings. The treble or melody notes are played both on and off the beat (with and between the thumb beats). The off-beat tre- ble notes create the syncopation that makes this style so interesting and unique.

Foothills To ease you into this, I’ll work with a sim- plified version of an old favorite of mine, “My Home’s Across The Blue Ridge Mountains”-the lyric and melody are shown in Ex 1. I learned this song from the great North Carolina singer and banjo pidcer, Frank Proffitt. It’s been sung and played by many people, and the name of the mountain range can be changed according to the singer’s preference.

When playing in the key of D, I usually like to drop my bass E string one whole tone to D (one octave below the fourth

string). This is a very useful tuning, as it gives you much greater use of the sixth string in this key, and the low D sounds very rich and full.

Notes with stems down are played with your thumb: those with stems up are played with your index or middle finger. As you finger the chords shown above the music in Ex. 2, some of the important notes of the melody will fall right into place. At other times you’ll have to let go of the chord and find the notes in other ways. As you can see, most of the treble notes are played at the same time as the bass notes.

Steeper climbing Now let’s liven things up by adding some syncopation. Again, I’d lie to emphasize the importance of training your thumb to keep the steady 4/4 rhythm regardless of what you are playing with your tight hand fingers. In this song, your bass notes will be alternating primarily between the 6th and

4th strings. Since both of these strings will be played open, you will be able to move up the neck without worrying about changing the bass notes with your left hand. The spe- cial D-tuning chord-forms used in this ver- sion are shown in Bx. 3.

The variation in Ex. 4 features synco- pated (off-beat) notes as well as hammer- ons and pull-offs (I’ve indicated the left- hand fingering where it gets tricky). There are also a few jumps to the higher frets, so take care to maintain the beat with your thumb. Eventually the steady bass will become second nature and you won’t have to think about it. n

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New York City native Happy Traum has been in the forefront of the folk scene since the early ’60s. Through his many books, records, and instructional tapes he has helped thousands of guitarists become bet- ter musicians.

Ex. 1

D

1

MY home’s a - cross the Blue Ridge tains. MY

home’s a - cross the Blue Ridge Moun tains. MY

home’s a - cross the Blue Ridge Moun - tains. My love, and I

nev - ver ‘spect see you an - y more.

26 HOW TO PLAY GUITAR / COUNTRY I

INTRODUCTION TO TRAVIS=STYLE

Ex. 2

A7 D

Ex. 3

D D G A7 A 000 x000 0 0 0 x0

V 1 2

1

4

I COUNTRY / HOW TO PLAY GUITAR 27

A D -

28 HOW TO PLAY GUITAR / COUNTRY I