Tip for playing Tripping Billies

[gravedigger]

Dave's strumming style is very simular to most folk singers ( Willy Nelson ) . When Dave plays he keeps the beat with his strumming hand , in songs like stone he is picking single strings but it looks like he is strumming , thats because that is how he keeps the beat . To play like Dave you need to keep a beat and keep the tempo . When playing songs like the Stone he plays the single strings but their is also muting , he will use a lot of muting in his songs . Now if you mute a string and play it you can tell , but you can learn how to control the sound of you muted string ( like how high , and how defined ) . I'll tell you what it's not easy , it takes lots of practice . But once you get it songs like The Stone and Tripping Billies and What Would You Say , and So Much To Say are nothing , you will be able to play those and sing like the man him self ....... but practice , practice ,practice ,practice ,practice . Thats all I can say !
Cheers

Well said. I used to play Tripping Billies with just two fingers but I just wasn't getting it to sound the way I liked it. I learned the Dave (the right) way and it's so much smoother and sounds and feels better to play. He makes incredible use of all four fingers to make the transitions between the chords as smooth and sounding the best way possible. He's a percussive guitarist - There's just as much if not more going on with his right hand than there is with his left. Sometimes too much emphasis is placed on what he's doing on the neck rather than what he's doing with his strumming hand - like what CheersDtoT said about the muting and the precision and his percussive techniques. Anyway, I just wanted to give my 2 cents on an interesting discussion.

peace,

Ken

[JayDMB]

I agree that it doesn't matter if you use two or four fingers. But one thing that i noticed by learning how to do it with four fingers is that my pinky became more versitile. Before i tried it, i would do anything to avoid using my pinky in a chord. But by learning to play that way it got a lot stronger. So learning how to use the four finger formation almost acted like an excercise for me. It ended up helping my overall playing ability.