Now that I think of it, John, the better copy of the video with the additional material did come straight from Ken, so you probably picked the right source. For anyone else interested, you can find details at his website.

I should also add a truth-in-advertising note about the Steve James book; don't expect it to be a big collection of songs at an easy level. The first song is about at the level I said, but it is really a survey of different roots styles and moves ahead very quickly. It isn't a step-by-step instruction book like Ken's book is. On the other hand, it should remain a useful companion for a long time; when Ken does alternate tunings Steve's book will have an appropriate song, and so on.

KateG, the Mark Hanson book sounds interesting, moreso because I'm slowly teaching my small nephew to play and he doesn't have any previous background to draw on. I didn't find a book called Introduction To Travis Picking. I did find The Art of Contemporary Travis Picking; is that the one?

I'd like to hear if the scales exercise works for you, since I can only recommend it based on how it worked for me. I think it could be developed into a whole series of exercises designed to get you to the point where you are playing entirely by ear over an alternating bass; in fact, this all motivates me to go back to this idea and work out some more exercises for myself. One thing I should have said is probably obvious; if you're going to go between open G on the third string to G on the third fret of the first string, all played over a C chord, you probably want to start and end on C regardless of what you do in between so the key center is really plain to the ear. That's what I did, at any rate.

Dustin