The term Piedmont can cover a lot of ground. Elizabeth Cotten and Etta Baker are the two traditional players I think of as exemplifying the Piedmont style but the term is often used to refer to Rev. Gary Davis and Mississippi John Hurt as well.

Players starting out with this style usually begin by learning a repetitive right (picking) hand pattern over one or two chords until the picking part becomes smooth. The thumb alternates with one or more fingers. As facility is gained, the thumb can alternate between different bass strings in it's turn. The finger(s) will also alternate between a couple of treble strings during this beginning phase. (Hold a C chord and play the strings 5-2-4-3 over and over.) An early refinement is to add a pinch to the mix—thumb and finger picking together while keeping all the other alternating stuff going. The bass strings played by the thumb are played as individual notes and are allowed to ring. Any necessary dampening of bass notes is done using the left (noting) hand.

Choose a plastic thumb pick that isn't long enough to strike the top of your guitar when the thumb is resting across the strings. I recommend learning without finger picks beause this will stand you in beter stead later on. If you feel you need finger picks, consider the Alaska brand picks which put the plectrum part in the same position as your finger nail (these also will allow the tip of your fingers to touch the strings and give you a better feel).

Once the picking pattern is mastered and you've developed some freedom with your picking hand, start trying a three string alternating bass playing (over a C chord) C-E-G-E-C-E-G-E. In string/fret terms this is 5/3-4/2-6/3-4/2. When you have all this working smoothly, work it through a lot of different chords and keys. Keep in mind that your bass string strategy will need to change depending on the chord patterns you use.

The last step is to learn to depart from the pattern so that your fingers find notes in the melody instead of just playing harmony notes built into the chord. As you get better at finding the melody notes, your left hand will learn a few new tricks in the bargain.

Listen to a lot of players in the style and learn lots of songs using the techniques. Before you know it, you'll naturally begin to forget about patterns and just play what you feel.

Playing Rev. Gary Davis’ tunes demands a more extensive knowledge of the fingerboard than the tunes of Cotten and Baker. I'd start with them and then move to Hurt before tackling Davis.

Travis Style uses some of the ideas of Piedmont style but is much more refined and complex. Rythmically, the thumb takes the lead but rather than play bass notes as in the Piedmont style, two or three string bass chords are played and the bass strings are slightly damped by the heel of the picking hand. We have other threads here that discuss the details of Travis picking and a search will yield a lot of good ideas and links.

When I began this post it would have been the third in the thread. I'd better cut it off now and see how the thread is progressing. <g>

      - Mark