Country Style Fingerpicking, "Brushing" & Travis Picking

In lesson 3 of this Country Guitar Bootcamp, we'll explore fingerstyle guitar! This versatile concept is perfect for adding nuance to your rhythm playing, especially in slower tempo tracks like a ballad or to generally vary the dynamics in your playing.

We can adapt some core ideas from strumming patterns and alternating bass note ideas from Lesson 1 and 2 into a fingerstyle approach.

Method 1 - Finger Brush

• Starting always with the root note on beat 1 using your thumb, followed by a pattern of thumb, down, up, thumb, up, down, up.

• Use your first finger to brush the remainder of any chord on the 'downs' and 'ups' of this pattern shown above.

• To elevate further, we can add the alternating bass notes with the thumb.

Method 2 - Finger Picking Patterns

Next, we'll dive into a more traditional finger picking pattern;

• On a root 6 chord, such as our G chord, use your thumb to alternate between the root note and open D string

• Use the middle finger to pluck the G string and ringer finger to pluck the B string between each thumb note

  Pattern: thumb, middle, thumb, ring, thumb, middle, thumb, ring

• Add swing for a more dynamic feel!

  There a many variations for finger style patterns, so it is open to some experimentation, improvisation and preference!

Method 3 - Travis Picking

Finally, we’ll cover Travis picking, named after Merle Travis. This classic fingerstyle pattern involves a steady alternating bass with your thumb, combined with syncopated treble notes using your fingers. On a G chord, the thumb alternates between strings 6, 4, 5, and 4, while on a C chord, it moves from the 5th to 6th strings. This technique adds a signature "bounce" to your playing, perfect for a classic country sound.