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Trying to learn how to finger pick for a while, decided to start with this song as the pattern is pretty simple.

Again, more of a "working on a song", than a busking performance....

Jim,
Another good work in progress. It seems your Travis picking is coming along. As you said, this is more of a "working on a song" post than a "busking performance". As others, like Michele and Jean have advised, you would be better served to post these as separate threads as opposed to Busking, so that you can get more focused advice and encouragement and not get lost in the shuffle.

Bill

Definitely on the right track as far as the fingerpicking goes. Several more hours of that and you'll have made quite a bit of progress, I would think. Keep it up.

Hi Jim, travis pickin is great to get under your thumb and fingers, a very important style or skill, i hope Neil picks your video for a review, he often picked one out the busking thread..

Willem

Bill, Jay, Willem - thanks for the comments
Jay, I think you hit the nail on the head - several more hours of practice needed.
Don't believe the emails that talk about 5 minutes a day :laugh:

Hi Jim,

Glad to hear you working on a John Prine song. He has been one of my favorites since the early 70's. Jay played one of his songs at IGC this year and I loved it. I am always impressed at your song selection and love that you are posting videos on the songs you are working on. I wish Neil would put more lessons on JP songs. They always seem to sound like simple finger style songs, but often seem to have a twist that makes them different and more difficult. Thanks for sharing this with us.

Ron

Hi Jim, that was very entertaining. Your lyrics made me laugh, and you sing them with such a straight face. Your fingerpicking is coming along nicely. It just takes lots of practice, which seems to be the story of everyones life around here.

Sandy

Ron & Sandy,

Thanks for stopping by. John Prine has a lot of great songs - more John Prine lessons would be cool.

This one is a good intro to Travis picking for me with some easy chords and a pretty sparse picking pattern. Once I get more practice in and muscle memory on the picking, singing while picking is going to be a challenge.

This song, with the sing-song lyrics and all of the silly similes, is also good for me for singing/talking the lyrics while picking - and the C-B-G bass run is fun.

Hi Jim, finger picking is coming along just fine! Its amazing how hard it is to pick and sing when you are just starting out in to picking so I was impressed you got through the whole song as its so easy to stop every time there's a stumble. Getting through a whole song is important. Picking takes so much repetition until it sits but then the singing on top becomes easy. Thanks for sharing your progress!

Chris

Jim, thank you for sharing your work in progress.
It takes a lot of courage to do so!

Will you post this song again after some time, to show your progression?
I hope so and sure hope you are inspiring others to do so as well.

Cheers
Corina.