Jason organized his curriculum into three sections. In the first section, Jason takes you to school here with a little history on Travis Picking, a rundown of the style's most influential players (required listening!) and sound advise on gear and tone. Before taking on any new style or technique, its important to appreciate the background of that style or technique.
Section 2, Jason guides you through the nine essential Concepts and Techniques that comprise the foundation of Travis Picking. You'll play your way through these nine key learnings: Common Chord Shapes, Building I, IV, V Progressions, Rhythmic Coordination and Strength Drills, Travis Picking, Walking Bass Line Fills, Chord Substitutions, Chord Inversions, Chord Embellishments, and Travis Rolls.
It all gets put into play with the seven Performance Studies in Section 3. Jason specifically designed these studies to apply all nine essential Concepts and Techniques in a musical context. Get a solid grip on these nine studies and you'll possess ample Travis Picking skills: Travis Picking Primer, Walkin' Impressions, Substitution Teacher, Window Dressing, Spell Check, Leading Roll and The Kitchen Sink.
Jason demonstrates all of the performance studies over rhythm tracks and then breaks them down measure-by-measure, technique-by-technique.
All of the key demonstrations, performances and examples are tabbed and notated for your practice, reference and study purposes. You'll also get Guitar Pro files so that you can loop and/or slow any section down as you work through the lessons. Plus, Jason generously includes all of the rhythm tracks for you to work with on your own.
Few guitarists, if any, have had more impact on fingerstyle guitar than Merle Travis. Acknowledged as one of the most influential American guitarists of the 20th century, Merle's unique guitar style inspired Chet Atkins, Scotty Moore, Earl Hooker, Marcel Dadi, Thom Bresh (Merle's son), Tommy Emmanuel and the list goes on and on.
In turn, all of these masters infused their own genius into the Travis Picking to evolve the technique and influence generation after generation of fingerstyle players. Yet, trace it all back to its source and you'll find Merle's original Travis Picking at ground zero.
Today, its unthinkable to advance your skills as a fingerstyle guitarist without having a solid grip on Travis Picking, if only as a rite of passage. You owe it to yourself and we all owe it to Merle Travis. Fortunately your journey will be an enjoyable one with Jason Loughlin as your guide and his Focus On: Travis Picking course as your road map.