Hey Friend,
Sorry, I ran out of time Friday as I was working on creating the exercise you’re getting today. It’s the dang j.o.b. - that thing is a total killjoy, I tell ya!
I would much rather have stayed home and worked on this exercise for you instead of interrupting what I was doing, getting ready and going in to the office by 0830 hours…
Sheesh, if it weren’t for the bad habits, I’d never go to the j.o.b.
Ya know the ones… you probably have the same bad habits.
Like eating, living indoors, wearing clothing -- Meh, the choices we make…
Okay, back to the Travis picking exercises...
In this one, you will begin to see how you can change fingering on the fly to get some cool riffs and progressions.
The first two systems have you plucking alternate bass notes with your thumb. It's not a difficult maneuver, but it does take some practice to get used to it and build the muscle memory.
Here is the notation for your picking hand again:
P = thumb
I = index finger
M = middle finger
A = ring finger
In the last set of systems, we have a fun riff. This will show you how you can make one chord sound musical.
What you'll do is move your index finger in and out of the chord structure and use it to embellish the bass notes.
You only need the open D major chord shape for this one. The key to making this work is to use the index finger on your fingering hand and move it to the fifth string so you can finger the second fret.
This changes the chord slightly to a Dadd11/B. The ‘add11’ is a G note, and the B is the bass note for this chord.
Overall, not too difficult an exercise, but it should give you a little taste of the possibilities.
Tomorrow is Memorial Day here in the States. Hope you have plans for a picnic or something. We have rain forecasted…
It’s my youngest daughter’s birthday, so we’ll just have to celebrate indoors.
Have a great one!
Peace~
Dave
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