This thread was fun for me because I once (in a fit of private sarcasm) started "collecting" definitions of "Travis Picking." The subconscious rule I worked under was it had to come from a book or something, someplace where there was some reason to expect some care in terminology, or at least from someone who presumably would know (i.e. some bozo you met in the back room of a music store doesn't count). Lessee if I can remember a few of the ones I came across:

* Any kind of pattern picking, probably without a real melodic line (from an instructional book I favor)

* Anything with an alternating bass (seems to pop up here and there)

* A particular pattern the author deems to be "Travis' pattern" (at least one book on my shelf)

* Same thing, but now with melody notes actually inserted into the pattern

* Hurt-style two line melody-over-alternating-bass (a recent book I picked up, if I interpret him correctly)

That's a mighty flexible term, isn't it? Well, at least I learned to investigate further and not make too many assumptions when I came across it.

There must have been more. Notice how none of those are what Justapicker and Rick Fielding tell us is how Travis actually picked? I more or less suspected as much from the proliferation of definitions, no more than one of which could be Travis' style in the first place.

Anyway, I am glad to find out what Travis actually did, just for the record, and collect another definition to watch out for.

What I learned to call "Cotten picking" probably isn't what she did either, but that's veering off-topic.

Dustin