In last month's lesson, we learned how to apply Travis picking to rockabilly music. This month I want to show you a more advanced application of that technique. I picked an excerpt from my tune “She’s Something Sweet," on my soon to be released record
Peach Crate. This passage is mostly made up of Travis-style picking based of off simple chord shapes. There is however an octave climb in Figure 5, followed by some chicken picking that uses
lap steel voicings from July's lesson. I'll start by breaking this passage down section by section, and you can also hear an excerpt of how it sounds on the original album:
Download "She's Something Sweet."
Figure 1 is a very “Scotty Moore” approach to playing over a I chord. Practice the hammer-ons and slides slowly.
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In
Figure 2, the pinky does a lot of work moving from 9th of the chord to the 7th.
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For
Figure 3, we break away from the Travis picking for a moment. The double stops are being grabbed with the middle and ring finger. When you get to the last beat of the two bar phrase the pick will play the 4th string and the fingers grab the 3rd and 2nd strings.
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In
Figure 4 we go back to Travis picking.
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Figure 5 is a great way to get from your V chord back to the I. It's a classic Cliff Gallop turnaround. I'm just using octaves off of the 5th string and climbing up in half steps.
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In
Figure 6 I'm chicken picking double stops using lap steel voicings (major 6th chords) for shapes. All double stops are grabbed with the fingers. Make sure to slap them against the fingerboard to get that "spank" sound.
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Well, it's been a great year and a lot of fun writing this column for Premier Guitar. Thanks for reading and your comments. I always love to hear your feedback. Stay tuned for 2011's column. We have some great topics coming up!