String Love Guitar Lessons

For the past several lessons, I’ve been going over the basics of Travis-style technique.

Today, let’s actually apply all that fun picking-hand work to some actual chord progressions!

In this video, I demonstrate three different chord progressions and how you can experiment moving through them using Travis-style accompaniment:

Now, I’m going to be honest with you–the more basic music theory you understand, the better for knowing which notes you can use in the bass. However, even if you don’t know any music theory, you can still work on each of these chord progressions and make some really fun music happen.

Here are the chord progressions I played in the video for reference:

Progression I:

C G/B Am G/B

Progression II:

G D/F# Em D/F#

Progression III:

G C G C G D

These progressions are very standard. Mastering them will set you up to play hundreds and thousands of popular songs using the Travis-style accompaniment patterns to guide you.

Over time, I’ll include more and more actual tabs with songs played through using Travis-style accompaniment.

For now, though, one thing you can do to find new progressions to work on is to just go hunting around online for tabs to your favorite songs. Even if the original version of a song you love was in no way played using Travis-style guitar, you can still create your own arrangement by playing through the chord changes using the basic Travis-style patterns you now know.

Often this kind of experimentation leads to all sorts of fun new versions of familiar songs. And some of them can even be more beautiful than the originals!

Just remember–have fun and work these things S-L-O-W-L-Y at first until you’re able to maintain both the rhythm and great sound as you move through the changes using the Travis-style patterns you know.

Up until now, I’ve been going over the very foundational basics of Travis-style guitar.

I’ve looked at good finger movement. I’ve gone through some important basic patters that incorporate the index and middle fingers along with the customary alternating bass that characterizes the Travis-style sound.

Today, we’re going to look at the Travis-style pinch, which is where you simultaneously play your thumb and either your index or middle finger at the same time.

The pinch opens up a whole bunch of fantastic musical possibilities, but it can be surprisingly tricky when you first start learning how to do it.

Check out this video for a full breakdown of the pinch–what it is, how to do it and what to look out for as you practice it:

If you’re new to fingerstyle guitar, then this combination of playing the thumb and either the index or middle finger can really feel confusing at first. Since the thumb pushes out away from the hand and the index or middle fingers pull into the hand, it can be hard to balance those conflicting movements.

As always, slow practice is the answer. Take this slow. Really work on developing a comfortable feel for pinching with the thumb and either the index or middle fingers. You will need to do index and middle finger pinches depending on the musical context, so take the time to make sure both become very easy for you even if one finger is more challenging for you than the other.

Pay attention to the fine details here–you want both notes to ring out simultaneously. Don’t settle for “almost.” Let both notes ring out at exactly the same time. And, again, if this feels really hard at first, just slow it down. Take your time and work the pinch outside of any chord changes or musical rhythms.

If you’d like some musical exercises for working the pinch, here are four different ways you can practice pinching:

1)

1 ————————————————————————————————
2 ——-——–——-—————-—————–———————————-———-
3 —I———I———I———–I———I———–I———-I————I——————-
4 ————-P——————-P——————-P——————–P—————-
5 –P—————————————-P————————————————–
6 ———————–P—————————————–P—————————-

2)

1 ————————————————————————————————
2 —M——-M——–M———M——-M———M——–M——–-M—————–
3 ————————————————————————————————
4 ————-P——————-P——————-P——————–P—————-
5 –P—————————————-P————————————————–
6 ———————–P—————————————–P—————————-

3)

1 ————————————————————————————————
2 ————-M——–————M——————-M——————–M————-——
3 –I–——————-I——————-I———————I———————————
4 ————-P——————-P——————-P——————–P—————-
5 –P—————————————-P————————————————–
6 ———————–P—————————————–P—————————-

4)

1 ————————————————————————————————
2 –M——–———–M——————–M——————–M——————–———-
3 ————-I———————I——————–I———————I——————
4 ————-P——————-P——————-P——————–P—————-
5 –P—————————————-P————————————————–
6 ———————–P—————————————–P—————————-

I hope those helped you out! Good luck mastering the pinch!