I Love your site. It's awesome. I "taught" myself what little I know pre-internet, and now I think I'm paying the price. I'm just wrapping up the first level of "experienced" acoustic, and I see the next lesson starts with advanced Travis Picking.
My question is...
I tend to use my right hand index finger to alternate base lines, rather moving my thumb. Bad form, I know. This means my ring finger, and even occasionally my pinky, are in use more as well. They seem to be OK with this.
Is this a deal breaker going forward, and a habit I need to break, or is this an "acceptable" alternative that I can live with? I'm not destined to rock any arena's, just my living room, but now is the time to fix it if it's going to haunt me forever.
Travis Alternating Thumb?
# 1
You might want to ask Anders in his form since he is the Acoustic course instructor.
https://www.guitartricks.com/forum/c/51
My advice would be to consider your goals. If you can play the music you want with the technique you currently have, then keep using it. If however you come across a piece of music that requires you to adjust your technique, then it might be useful to develop your thumb independence.
I was in a similar position a few years ago. I'd spent about 25 years developing my fingerpicking technique mostly aimed at playing classical style. But, then I heard some Travis picking pieces that I really liked enough to dig into that style. I could only get so far with my established technique, so I spent a few months slowly working on the motions specific to Travis style with the thumb independence. Maybe 15-20 minutes a day just doing basic drills. I'll probably never get too far with it & it won't ever be as developed as my other playing in other styles! But it was fun & satisfying to add a little bit of that style to my repertoire & play a few tunes.
So, it might be worth it. But it really depends on how much time you have to devote to it.
Hope that helps!
# 2
