HOMESPUN
Taught By Happy Traum.
Level 2
Three CDs, Includes Music and Tablature Book
Fingerpicking guitar technique combines rhythmic basses with syncopated treble notes to create a wonderfully complex sound. Through his many years of teaching experience, Happy Traum has devised a course that will allow you to start fingerpicking folk, blues and country songs almost immediately by using pre-set "picking patterns" that you can learn by rote.
This foolproof method in the use of right-hand patterns for both song accompaniment and solo melody playing gives you a thorough introduction to basic fingerpicking techniques, and shows you how you can immediately apply them to a number of great songs. In addition to learning this wonderful guitar style, your playing will be improved with increased left- and right-hand coordination, the use of bass runs and harmony lines, and other techniques that will add new dimensions to your music.
Best of all, once you have these patterns mastered you'll be able to go on to learn more advanced fingerpicking styles of players such as Mississippi John Hurt, Doc Watson, Merle Travis, and many others.
This three-CD series can be used by anyone who knows the basic chords, even if you have never played this way before.
CD 1
Starting to pick:
Thumb-lead patterns for song accompaniment. "Banks of the Ohio," "Red Apple Juice," "Butcher's Boy," "900 Miles."
CD 2
Index and middle-finger lead picking:
"Railroad Bill," "Pretty Peggy-O," "Fishin' Blues," "All My Trials."
CD 3
Bass runs, bass-lead melody picking:
"Man of Constant Sorrow," "Buckdancer's
Choice," "Cannonball," "Railroad Bill," "Freight Train," "Will The Circle Be
Unbroken."
*remastered version of the three-cassette series "Pattern Picking"
Student Review: "I just finished Fingerpicking Made Easy and loved it! You should hear me play 'Buckdancer's Choice' and 'Railroad Bill!' I can't believe how much I've improved with this book. I reluctantly took your advice and tried fingerpicks (Alaska pics) and was surprised at just how easy it was to get accustomed to them. Keep the CDs coming.... I can listen to them as I commute to work. I pick things up faster by hearing them over and over again. Then when I sit down with the music it comes together rather quickly. The CDs are great." -- Barb Schlatter (by email)
During the past forty years, Happy Traum's avid interest in traditional and contemporary
music has brought him recognition as a performer, writer, editor, folklorist,
teacher and recording artist. He has performed extensively throughout the U.S.,
Canada, Europe, Australia and Japan, and has appeared on recordings as a featured
artist, as a member of various ensembles, and as an accompanist. He has played
and recorded with Bob Dylan, Chris Smither, Maria Muldaur, Eric Andersen, Rory
Block, Jerry Jeff Walker, Allen Ginsberg, Levon Helm, Rick Danko, Richard Manuel
and innumerable others. Happy is the author of more than a dozen best-selling guitar instruction books, has written numerous magazine columns and articles, and for three years was editor of Sing Out! The Folksong Magazine. He and his brother, Artie Traum, have been playing as a duo since 1968. Their first two Capitol albums, "Happy And Artie Traum" and "Double Back," are widely considered to be classics. Long-time residents of Woodstock, NY, Happy and Artie co-produced several important records for Rounder, featuring some of the area's finest folk and rock musicians. These included "Mud Acres, Music Among Friends" and "Woodstock Mountains." Happy and Artie's album "Hard Times In The Country" featured liner notes by Allen Ginsberg. In 1993, Happy and Artie released their latest duet album, "The Test Of Time," featuring traditional and contemporary songs backed up by some of Woodstock's finest musicians.
Happy's solo albums include "Relax Your Mind," "American Stranger," "Bright Morning Stars" and "Friends And Neighbors." A compilation CD, "Buckets Of Songs," has been released by Shanachie Records. In 2001, “Bright Morning Stars” was reissued in CD format in the U.S. (Lark’s Nest Music) and in Japan (Slice of Life Records).
Perhaps Happy Traum's most important and lasting musical contribution has been Homespun Tapes, which he and his wife Jane founded in 1967. This dynamic and growing mail order company has a catalog of approximately 400 different music instruction lessons on audio cassette, CD and video tape, taught by top professional performing musicians. Happy produces all of the lessons, and brings to Homespun his many years of experience as a popular and productive member of the music community.