that damn right hand

[Justin Crouse]

Hi Everyone,

I'm new to the board. I've recently put a new neck on an old Partscaster that I've had, and have fallen in love again with the Caster. I've played blues-based Strat for almost fifteen years, but now I want to work towards Telemaster status.

I've been trying to work through hybrid picking, and my fingers just don't want to cooperate. The right hand seems to be glued together.

Can any of you suggest, or point to a discussion of, any exercises that will help me gain independance in the right hand? My immediate goal is to do some Travis picking. I've sat for hours doing the bass notes, and I've got them okay, I can also do the trebly notes okay with the fingers, but can't put them together.

What has been your experience with this? Just buckle down and practice the lick? I can hear it in my head and picture it, but I'm thinking that there might be some rudiment exercises to help me get some independance.

Please help.

Justin

p.s. Does anyone have any decent knobs for my "new-love" tele? I've got the all-parts crappy ones on it and would love to upgrade. thanks in advance.

[Tim Bowen]

Welcome.

Yeah, marrying up the two parts is indeed the trick. I originally got it together in the same way that I worked on simultaneously playing syncopated intrumental parts and singing vocal lines that were rhythmically entirely different from each other - by working out with a metronome, with a painfully slow tempo; I'm talking so slow that there's time to think about each upcoming move. Take a phrase or a measure at a time, and drill it ad nauseum. When you're comfortable with the phrase, start taking the tempo up, a little bit at a time.

Also, and this will sound silly - whenever a technique or approach is kicking me around, I figure it's time to watch a good movie. Seriously, I just sit there and watch the flick, and drill a couple of phrases for several hours, with an unplugged Tele. I don't know why this works, but it does. Probably some silly cosmic right brain vs. left brain psychological disassociation thing, who knows. That's what I did to get my basic rockabilly thing together. Try it.

Folks tend to use the term "Travis picking" somewhat generically, and I do as well. Oddly enough, when I play a Merle Travis thing like "Cannonball Rag", I can't quite get it with pick and fingers, I have to use thumb and fingers; there's something about the way those particular voicings lay on the board. I'm sure there are folks that can hybrid-pick the tune, and I know tons of guys that nail it with thumbpick and fingers. On the flip side, I don't have much difficulty in getting the Scotty Moore/Elvis sort of thing with pick and fingers.

Maybe start by not being overly ambitious. Try these garden variety E7 and A7 grips that combine alternating bass with a simple rolling figure.

------------------------------
----5---------5---------5-----
---------7----------7---------
----6------6------6---------6-
-7------------7---------------
-------7--------------7-------

----3--------3---------3----
--------2---------2---------
----------------------------
----2-----2-----2---------2-
-0-----------0--------------
------0--------------0------

[CountryShawn]

Good advice by Tim above.

Also, be absolutely relentless in your pursuit to perfect this - and you'll eventually nail it.

Cheers,

Shawn

[Chris S.]

Good stuff from Tim and Country Shawn, as always. :-) This isn't Travis picking per se, but here's an oldie-but-moldy thread about a bunch of right hand stuff:

http://www.tdpri.com/forum/tab-tips-...en-pickin.html

You'll find several other good threads in the archives of this forum (Tab, Tips, etc...), you just might have to do a little digging. Hope it helps, CS :-)

[Refret]

Good advice everyone. I am a slow learner and here is what works for me. I can't start with a metronome because my hands will just be lost. Secondly I have never been able to learn the bass part and then the treble part and put them together. I have to teach my hands to strike all the notes together that belong together. To start I figure out how to count the measure. I count quarter notes as: one, two, three, four. If we had to count eighths I would count: one, and, two, and, three, and, four, and. Sixteenths would be: one, ee, and, uh, two ee, and, uh, three, ee, and, uh, four, ee, and, uh. Triplets would be: one, and, uh, two, and, uh, three, and, uh, four and, uh.
As we look at Tims example I take the bass notes on the 7th frets to be the one, two, three, four. After the one we have one interval before two. Let's count: one, and, two. The next two notes could be a triplet or sixteenths. Triplets felt odd to me so I counted Sixteenths and hit the two notes on the ee, and. The count is now: one, and, two, ee, and, uh. I then finished out the measure the same way. (one, and, two, ee, and, uh, three, ee, and, uh, four, ee, and, uh.) As I learn this figure I play the notes in sequence and count simultaneously. I don't worry about the time until my hand learn the sequence. Then I slowly tighten up the time and speed until it's ready for the metronome. Oh and I added some accents and swing to taste.
To sum up I have to teach my head to teach my hands. When the hands know what's going on I can forget the head stuff and play.
Hey all the fingers are working in time. Sounds good to me. It's a miracle. Hurrah.

[Justin Crouse]

Thanks a bunch everyone. I think it's going to be a combination of all your suggestion approach for me.

Thanks,
Justin