Contemporary Travis Picking
Mark Hanson
What is “Travis Picking”? Ask a roomful of guitarists and watch pandemonium break out. For many it is one set pattern of moving the right-hand fingers picking the notes of a chord. For others it is any pattern that alternates a bass note with a chord or part of one. (Of course there are those that define it as anything that Merle Travis played and nothing else.) Over the years I have put in time with several approaches and found none that are really satisfactory in the long run. I started with the pattern that John Lennon plays on Dear Prudence and Julia (on the White Album, using the pattern he learned from Donovan in India). Great songs, but one pattern does not fit all songs. Then I learned the alternating-bass style that Paul Simon uses on such songs as The Boxer. Then I hit a wall. It seemed that this style was just alternating the bass with a chord or single notes from a chord in endless variations, but some artists developed terrific individual styles while others sounded "generic" and boring. How was I to get there?
If only I had Mark Hanson's The Art of Contemporary Travis Picking available to me! This is a well organized method that takes you from the simplest of accompaniment patterns all the way to some full-blown solo playing. Mark Hanson has a great talent for extracting the most essential features of this style and organizing them in a series of progressive steps. That alone would make this a very good method, but what makes it outstanding is the musicality that Mr. Hanson brings to the exercises and the arrangements. From the start, you are playing music here, not simply finger exercises.
Hanson distills the variations of this style to four basic patterns. Each of these is taught in simple exercises to get them into your fingers, and then in actual songs to encourage you to master them. The songs have the melodies as well as the accompaniment parts, so you can sing along as you play or you can accompany someone else right away. Particular attention is paid to fingering to help inculcate good habits from the beginning. As well, after each pattern there is a list of popular songs that use that pattern as their basis. While this is an excellent book for a beginning guitarist, it is also a great resource for someone who wants to take their accompaniment from strumming to the next level.
After each pattern is taught there is an examination of the variations on the pattern that can make it more musically appealing. The reach of the right hand is expanded from thumb and two fingers by adding in the ring finger, along with the expansions that this allows in the basic patterns. Then it’s on to playing a solo on top of your own accompaniment, as well as many more tips and pointers on good accompanying technique, ending up with some terrific accompaniments and a cool solo.
The 14 songs included in the book are, as you might expect, public domain “traditional” ones. The great news is that these are precisely the songs that so many fine performers play with Travis Picking! The tunes you learn include John Barleycorn, Will the Circle Be Unbroken, Freight Train, Wanderin’, The Water is Wide, Sloop John B, and many more that you will recognize right away. The accompaniments that Hanson provides you are as fine as you would want to play.
In addition to the written-out songs, Hanson also provides patterns from popular songs written and performed by such luminaries as Paul Simon, James Taylor, and the others listed on the front cover. Some might be disappointed that the actual songs by these songwriters have not been included, but this would no doubt have made the book prohibitively expensive. Besides, most of us have the chords to these songs in various songbooks (if they are not indelibly burned into our brains already). Beyond that, though, there is real magic in taking Pattern 1 and finding how it matches The Boxer, Dust in the Wind, and the other 12 songs listed on your own. See how many more you can find for even more fun.
The book has been around for quite a while now, so it is remarkably free of those errors that creep in during typesetting, especially with music. The only minor glitch that caught my eye was in the last line of The Tree They Do Grow High on page 23, where the second bar in has D on the second and fourth beat, while the tablature correctly shows that they should both be E. That is an easy one to spot, and of course you will hear the correct version on the CD that comes with the book. To make it even more helpful, Hanson plays the song accompaniments slowly first to let you hear exactly what is going on, and then at performance speed to hear how they should sound.
In summary, this book is a terrific bargain. If you can just strum the basic “cowboy” chords you can learn to Travis Pick with just this book and some patient practice. Mark Hanson’s instruction is clear and progresses in small steps that continually build on what you have done, moving ahead while reinforcing what you already know. In addition, there are countless tips on playing better, changing chords more efficiently, balancing the volume of the fingers, and so on. This is a very musical book which has a lot to teach even intermediate Travis Pickers. Highly recommended!
To hear an mp3 of one of the songs, view the entire Table of Contents, and order this extraordinary book, visit Accent on Music at http://www.accentonmusic.com/book_detail.asp?qID=5