The Art of Contemporary Travis Picking

This book has been a staple in the guitar community for decades, and with good reason. Easy to grasp concepts, bite size exercises that build on each preceding one and actual SONGS utilizing those exercises. I used it 30 years ago and bought it again when I picked the guitar back up. Can't recommend highly enough.

When fingerpicking comes to my mind, I think of being able to play the melody and harmony together or something close to classical guitar (my mind has been brainwashed by YouTube). This book provides training mainly for fingerpicking as backing for singing along.I suppose for what I'm looking to play, this book does provide a good foundation for it. The tunes that the author chose are very country and folky (not my usual cup of tea) which isn't necessarily a bad thing because I feel like these skills can be applied in any genre of music where you want to apply fingerpicking.when I initially flipped through the book, I thought it was kind of simplistic and disappointing. The patterns looked easy and uninteresting but the point is to master these patterns to the point that you can play them quickly and accurately and perhaps without too much thought. For me, it takes a while to play the patterns without goofing up or getting confused between all the different patterns. It looks easy but in reality, it's quite difficult to master right away.Overall, I think it's a helpful book and provides a guide for mastering fingerpicking patterns. You'll dazzle others when you've finished this book (or even before that) even if you don't like singing along.The CD is very well done. The author will play a pattern slowly, then quickly and then will play along with a singer so you can hear how the pattern is applied.I think if you're pretty new to guitar, you can get started with this book. Before this book, I used Mark Hansen's  Beyond Basics Fingerstyle Guitar (The Ultimate Beginner Series)  which isn't necessary to start off and is pretty easy (think of it like baby steps before the actually beginning). Even if you're a seasoned guitarist but new to fingerstyle, I recommend this book because it gives a lot of good fingerpicking practice.

Amazon has this product priced at $13.57 but I ended up paying around $18.00 after shipping and handling, which I did not know Amazon charged. I include this in the review because after working with the book, I would say it is well worth $13.57 but maybe, maybe not the retail price of $19.99.The book is thin, keep that in mind. However, the exercises get progressively difficult and you will be capable of beginning to intermediate Travis picking at the end of it. I was hoping to find something a bit more rigorous. Maybe something that would get me to those fast alternating bass songs. After going through this book you may want to pick up the second volume, which may have the challenge necessary to play something at an advanced level.The presentation of the books is sort of an issue. No fancy pictures and it looks like it was typed up in a type writer and sent to the publishers. But again, that is why it is worth around $13.57 and maybe not retail price. I say maybe because I think would still buy the book even if I saw it at a store, flipped through the pages and paid retail price.Overall it is a four star product. Were the presentation better and were there more challenge than it would be five star.

As many have said, this is a fantastic book. You can start out not knowing much and do very well if you persevere.Its helpful for any guitar beginner always to know as many chords as you can and to be able to read music. Reading guitar music is a reasonable skill to acquire: it means being able to look at the note on the page, and know exactly what note to play on the guitar. It is much better to know music than to know tab, because you start to understand scale and chord construction much more easily once you are familiar with the notes.Anyway, back to this book, as you work your way through it seems very hard at first but after a week or so you get it.Then when you get to the first total song (combining melody with accompaniment) called "Freighttrain", you might, like me, sort of flip out: "This is way too hard"!!Don't worry. Just keep trying and amazingly you will get it with practice every day. Then you can actually make music on your guitar by fingerpicking and really entertain yourself (and maybe others!).I recommend getting this book plus David Hamburger's "The Acoustic Guitar Method, complete edition" (3 volumes). 6-9 months with these two and you'll know a lot of guitar (maybe others can go faster but I think that is about my pace). There are so many guitar books its hard to know where to start but with these two you'll do well.

As I've now probably spent more money on technique books than on my guitar I've realized that 90 percent of them are crap. (just like photography books) Sure you can learn a riff, but you don't learn how to actually play the guitar. I have this re-ocurring dream that I go to a jam session to play with people and we all know the same riffs cause no one really knows how to play.This book on the other hand, actually teaches you some technique and has allowed me to actually feel like I'm learning something. I've had fingering practice books that jump right into arpegios and dont build up any technique so your stuck for months trying to figure out the first measure of the book. Not here, (know your chords or have a chord book handy) you jump into using three fingers, then four, and different patterns. You base them all on chords any beginner should know and within a little time you can play simple patterns that makes you feel like you can actually play. (change the chords that you know and you can feel yourself actually coming up with your own little licks) It also (being an ex-piano player) brings you into single finger playing alot faster and helps you start to seperate you hands from each other.Really is a book worth having, its the only book I have given a 5 star to in a long time.

This is a no-nonsense book which builds up your Travis Picking skills from zero to perhaps not (guitar) hero but at least competency at playing all the basic patterns across all six strings. Right up until almost the end everything follows logically and, so long as you practise, I don't think you can fail to progress. The book's look and feel is pretty basic, but everything is presented very clearly.Minor faults: 1) the 2nd and 3rd from last pieces are a lot trickier, using I think rather over complex hammer-ons and pull offs which get in the way of practising the other techniques those pieces are supposed to be building; some of the earlier hammer on/ pull off exercises are tricky too. Funnily enough, the last piece, "Over and Out Rag" is a little easier 2) my CD was scratched so I can't play the last few tracks... but I suspect I was just unlucky and, anyway, those tracks are just full versions of songs you've already learned.This book may be a little harder if you are a complete beginner and have to learn the chord shapes as well as the picking patterns, perhaps not the best book if that's you, but still do-able. If you know basic chord shapes and just need to learn the patterns then I'd definitely recommend this book... so long as you do like folk music, because the tunes are VERY folksy and you'll soon find yourself playing pieces about planting corn in the ground and tying blue ribbons around your loves head... so, besides your guitar, all you really need are your sandals!Once you've finished this book there's a thicker follow on "The art of solo fingerpicking" which I'm just starting... I have a feeling things are about to get trickier! But this book was near perfect for getting the Travis Picking basics.

This is ideal for someone who knows their chords but is yet to try finger picking. I'm no expert but I found myself skipping through to page 22 in a few minutes, mostly it has to be said because the first 3 or 4 songs here are presented with suitably easy arrangements but end up sounding dull. But from there on I have enjoyed working through this collection of folk, blues and country songs and feel my picking has improved a great deal. The CD of the arrangements included is good and presents the songs played through slowly first which I found useful, but the final versions are not all solo performances and I found the inclusion of other instrumentssometimes overwhelms the finger picked parts your trying to work out. One final minor quibble I had was the mention of popular pickers like Paul Simon, James Taylor and Leo Kottke on the cover when none of their work is included here, but overall this is a good introduction to Travis picking and easy to work through.

This is a good book and I am enjoying learning this style of finger picking. However it doesn't really give you all you need to know. The authour introduces hammer ons and pull offs, for instance, without explaining how they should be executed, so you'll have to look elsewhere for that. Also there are couple of big jumps that can be hard to get past, like when we learn a song called The Water is Wide which requires new techniques but is also played in drop D tuning with 24 new chord shapes to learn. I mean, blimey!Just got to stick with it I suppose.

I used this mainly as a refresher having not played finger style for a very long time. Starts of very simply and progresses to a good standard by the end of the book. Recommended for someone starting out on fingerstyle. Have now moved onto 'The Art of Solo Fingerpicking' which follows on nicely at a more intermediate level.

I never usually bother reviewing things I buy on Amazon (and I buy A LOT of stuff). So the fact that I felt compelled to write my first review after using this book must tell you something!I LOVE it!! I'd only been playing guitar for about 2 months when I bought this book but I knew a lot of the chords and I really wanted to try finger picking. I found I was getting through it incredibly quickly! Not because it's too simple but because everything is very well explained and it progresses in simple steps. You will find yourself being able to play several different patterns in no time at all. The CD is also very helpful when you're not quite sure how a song should sound.Buy this book!