Greg Koch explains Chicken Picking and Travis Picking (Tutorial)

[@JJvienneau]

4:02 "Between the Thud and the Pop, the Chicken takes flight''! Thanks for this, you made me a better player Greg!

[@gernotboesser6901]

Greg Koch is a monster player, but his humour tops it all 🙏

[@daganhaddad]

his facial expressions alone kill me

[@joequintana5546]

And his height tops his humor.

[@jaroneaton8023]

Greg I've watched you for years but this is the absolute best tutorial on chicky picky I've seen. Bravo sir!

[@ElDami]

This style of guitar playing is so uncommon on my country that this tutorial is more than welcome. Also Greg is a total hero. Great material, guys, thank you for this!

[@kbresow1]

Greg Koch is so evolved its just unbelievable! Saw him this week at Fanatics pub. The ticket was $25 bucks and was one of the best shows I ever saw! What a value! The man is a wizard!

[@WillyPDX94]

Now that's a lesson I can dig into. The fact you acknowledge it takes pain, time, and practice is what I need to be reminded of. Thanks. ✌

[@glennkemp6565]

Since I am 60 years old, I might have this down for my 80th. Greg, you have so much skill on the guitar, but your imagination and sense of humor really set you apart.

[@kirkwilliams2127]

I feel ya. I just started at 60 and am hooked. Wish I stared when I was young but I WAS BUSY RACING MOTOCROSS.

[@eduardoprieto5267]

Don't feel bad I'm 64 yrs old, been playing since 1976 and still can't master it. Blessings, from tomato patch texas.

[@glennkemp6565]

@@kirkwilliams2127 Hey brother, you are young! Keep practicing. Jesus loves you.

[@caleshtcincredibles]

😂😂😂same here

[@dallastoto3189]

Lucky to see him at a music store in Brookfield Ct( Rt 7) years back. Funny and a great player! He was a Fender associate.

[@Zozo-d7p]

Greg, you are A GREAT player, an awesome teacher and a real ENTERTAINER. Respect!!

[@michaeleaster1815]

1:50 I have some of Greg's lessons. I've been playing for a long-time, including finger-picking, but the hybrid pick & finger technique took a long time. For weeks -- weeks! -- there was no progress, and then, at last, incremental gains... I'm nowhere near the Mansquatch but I'm way better, after about a year. It can be done! The chicken will take flight!

[@GaZonk100]

lol

[@ronaldlemons2836]

man, ive been playin 55 yrs and this is the first time to see this explained

[@mikeg9b]

I've never seen him do a lesson. He is really good. He slows it down, but not too slow.

[@edwinwoods8294]

what an amazing teacher ..dumbs it down for mere mortals like me . thk you

[@kevinlindsay5255]

FANTASTIC Tutorial Greg. Although I am 65 years old, and I am just starting out on my guitar journey (Never too old to learn is my motto) Country is my thing and getting that good old boy's sound is what I am looking for. Thank you so much for making this method easy for us oldies to understand 👍. Now it's time to get down to some hard practicing. Good news is, I have plenty of spare time on my hands 👍🎸🎸🎸🎸🎸🎸🎸

[@kevinlindsay5255]

@BLUeducdog-ip1ek to my very last breath

[@russeljones4692]

Lol. That's the spirit. I have been playing huh for a Lil while, and for blues rock was/is as good as one wanted. However I am so lazy now, still love music though

[@kevinlindsay5255]

@@russeljones4692 My only regret in life is not learning to play when i was younger

[@seanandben]

Two excellent tutorials from the vastly underrated Greg Koch, whose wit is almost as fast as his fingers when he's in hyper-speed mode!

[@terrys3753]

Thank you, Greg! I've been working on this for years (now a big part of my style) and really enjoyed your take and insight. Your humour is also much appreciated. I'll be watching this a few times, methinks.

[@lucaskasten9459]

Saw this guy live in Phoenix at the rhythm room. Incredibly inspiring.

[@arnottclark6959]

I absoulutly loved the way you broke down these techniques !

[@johnechampion]

Oh, my God, finally a great teacher. Who knows what slow means. He broke it down at a pace that so many out there don’t do. It’s almost like they want you to know, but they don’t really want you to know? Thank you so much, Mr. Koch not only for your mastery but for just who you are. This is one style that has eluded me for a very many years. God bless.🙏

[@danthegeetarman]

I had a book that had Travis picking licks that I learned when I first started playing guitar and I got so good at them that I could play it really fast really naturally. All of my shredder friends were always way more impressed by my Travis picking stuff than the shred stuff lol

[@danqodusk8140]

Great presentation and playing. These styles lie outside my interests, but who doesn't enjoy the sound of a snapping Telecaster driven by talent?

[@joeallansen4971]

Just discovered your channel - My life has been made so much better with the detail on Chicken Picking - I can't thank you enough.

[@onethousandtwonortheast8848]

Greg is THE man. If you ever get a chance to see him live, do yourself a favor and GO!!!

[@tormado]

11:53 knocked me out cold Great lesson, Greg. Thanks!

[@dokterzorro]

That. Should be a lesson all in itself. What just happened, what WAS that!

[@Nowo78]

What a legend - excellent explanation!

[@girliedog]

Excellent tutorial that I will be watching again for practicing. I saw your demos for Wildwood, and it helped to sway me into buying a Custom Martin from them.

[@neve4020]

That’s what happens to me right now… 000-18… 😂

[@TheInfiniteFret]

If you started learning guitar within the last few years, you don't know how good you have it! Greg makes the technique clear as day. Excellent teacher. A couple of decades ago, it was very hard to find material to learn country pickin. Once you found a book or video, you then had to pay $20-30 for it or try to figure this stuff out by ear, which isn't easy to do. Fortunately for me, being a proficient bassist first, all the right hand coordination was already in place, and pickin came natural to me. I watched much more accomplished guitarists struggle to figure it out, and I would never demonstrate the technique at slow tempos like Greg did here. I guess there are no more guitar secrets in the world =)

[@JLCwakeboardingFL]

I’ve been tryin to figure this out for a couple years now. Lot of good info here

[@pyroguitars1296]

Yeah, I can't do that, but it's impressive to hear. I wandered over having watched you on That Pedal Show. 😊

[@ZackRL96]

This lesson is worth its weight in gold

[@rihamy2nd]

@8:24 To hear Greg say that something was difficult to learn gives us all hope that just maybe it is attainable for us as well.

[@dragan4658]

Its fun to noodle and or chicken pickin! Its nice to see Reverend changed the headstock design lime on this guitar, nice improvement. Thanks for the demo!

[@bigl6322]

Greg talks about being really into Albert Lee, so I have to tell this story even if no one reads this crap. I got pulled over doing 75 in a 55 in north Idaho, I was listening to Albert Lees Fun Ranch Boogie (which is an absolute smoking tune) and the county cop ask me where I’m going in such a hurry. I told him I was a guitar player, and he says “so?”, and I say “well, I was just listening to this song” and I pointed out the audio, he said again “So?” And I said “no, listen” and I reached over and cranked it up right as Albert hit one of the blazing down fret runs. The cop actually listened for a minut, then he just started laughing and said “all right then, get outta here and slow it down” shaking his head as he walked back to his cruiser. So, Albert saved me a $200 speeding ticket!

[@hammadounissabre7018]

lol I read your story. Pretty cool

[@bigl6322]

“There’s gonna be pain involved!” I grabbed another 3 minute chicken pikkin videos of his yesterday, should have trimmed my nails first. Ripped the middle finger nail off in about 5 minutes, then proceeded to peel skin off the end of that finger, now I’m working on the ring and index fingers so I least I’ll be versatile when I heal! (But, I got the feel for it….now we just gotta fertilize!) Good freakin lesson, right here! And the chicken takes flight!! Edit.. also have to comment re: balancing the volume of the “pick and the pop”. My best practice it to turn it the hell up and get in front of the amp, immediately forces me to lighten my touch, which I’ve found really helps me control nuance much more easily.

[@crucifixgym]

I bought a Koch SRV blues DVD about 20 years ago, had no idea who he was, so nice to have new cool stuff streaming here.

[@DollarBill-jq4ep]

Great lesson AND a funny guy!

[@anatriellociucci1224]

Those who played some " pulgar flamenco " or double thumb on bass may skip some of the pain. I love CPicking. Lovely tutorial, ❤ Rome Italy

[@GiantSFaithfuL]

Dude I can't wait to practice this stuff. Thanks!

[@paulgibby6932]

10:40 "black chicken" haha! This is great info, Greg. Thanks!

[@Terrysoddy]

Wow. You have amazing guitar skill and talent

[@Matthew-e3u7r]

Black Chicken is so underrated.

[@pvkoinch]

Good evening sir, Greetings from Nepal!!!! Best ever channel!!

[@thenoodler]

When the “goofing off” far exceeds the talents of most guitar heros, you know you're dealing with a real master of the craft.

[@-Pol-]

I've never much liked country music, but now that I have a tele... here I am!

[@spendlove1001]

Here for the same reason 😂

[@user-ni3mj3he2k]

Same here, but loving country music, not very usual for a Spanish guy. Got my first tele and man, gotta get into the groove

[@JalenRawley]

I don't know if this will be helpful for anyone else, but I'll share anyway... I was able to do hybrid picking right away, the first time I tried it in fact, but only with my middle finger and the pick. It has been a slow progression adding the ring finger. Part of that is because when I played acoustic without a pick, I used my thumb, index and middle. Again, it was just natural and one day it hit me... I started out as a bass player and I played with my fingers and learned slap bass. The way I slap is more of a Stanley Clarke/Victor Wooten kind of slap rather than a Louis Johnson/Flea kind of slap. What I mean by this is my hand looks more like a fist than a hitchhiker with the thumb extended and the thumb slap is more like a pick than a hammer slapping the string directly down onto the fretboard. The combination of fingerpicking with just the index and middle and this claw like technique of slap and pop for years before I played guitar made it a really natural transition. "Good for you, but how does that help me?" Well, it makes sense that the dexterity is all related, so if you're trying to work on hybrid picking, practice fingerpicking like a bass player plays. Index and middle, thumb anchored on a pickup, alternate steady 8th or 16th notes. Adding the ring finger to hybrid picking took much longer, because it didn't have the dexterity and strength that my index and middle had. So the first thing I did was just use the ring in conjunction with the middle, plucking at the same time. Your fingers are kinda preprogrammed to work together, so it's very natural. And your hand is naturally preprogrammed to work from the pinky to the thumb in order to grasp objects. It's very natural and flowing to drum your fingers from your pinky to your index versus from index to pinky. So work on picking ring-middle-index first, 321 321 321, and then work on reversing it, 123 123 123. I've found that a lot of banjo playing is based around that 123 sequence rather than 321, so learning banjo has been much harder. Your mileage may vary, but it has worked for me even though I didn't realize why at first. I think we all pay far more attention to our fret hand technique than we do our pick hand technique, even without any fingerpicking involved. Once we get our right hand going when we're first learning to play, it kinda goes on autopilot while we work on chords, scales and arpeggios. It's not until something isn't working that we have to refocus on that pick hand.

[@PR-BEACHBOY]

Amazing player/teacher

[@al1976-v7m]

Really well explained and demonstrated, thanks! And that's a fantastic sounding Tele btw

[@chaddio72]

He’s so right, after only playing dobro and banjo (got into a Americana band) for 4-5 years now, I started learning country and almost immediately gave it up. It’s very discomforting in the beginning. However, I feel like I play all my leads (any genre) better now being 🤘I did have to go with using a thumb pick since I have to play dobro still (bluegrass) and chick’n pick’n

[@joeemenaker]

Kudos to Greg for "Don't speed it up until you have it right slow". I often tell my students "I don't care how fast you can play it wrong", so Greg's suggestion is music to my ears. Don't try to do it fast and then clean it up later because you'll be training yourself to do it sloppy and it will be hard to unlearn (because the sloppiness was caused by needing to take short-cuts). Do it as slowly as you need to get it accurate and to start developing the correct muscle movements from the start. Then, as the muscle memory takes hold, you can gradually speed it up. Test yourself to see how fast you can go before you start noticing mistakes, and then probably practice at about 90-95% of that tempo.

[@rockyroad90]

Heck of a teacher. You earned my sub!

[@fleadoggreen9062]

There is a Zac brown song cool as hell It sounds like a older rock song That has some good chicken pickin You know that one I subscribed I love ur playing and teaching

[@TheCream14]

Best player on the planet.

[@DanielC__]

Greg is about the funniest guitarist of all time. Hilarious phrases

[@behnamzadeh1936]

very important guitarist unbelievable

[@howardw3223]

Superb tutorial

[@pierredesroberts8985]

Thanks a mill Greg!! GREAT stuff !

[@fraserpark8377]

A real boss and great personality

[@spkay31]

Thanks for that great simple but thorough breakdown of the two techniques. Now, that knowledge and just 1000 hours of practice and it should sound great! LOL

[@edwinwoods8294]

this is incredible

[@Jamestele1]

This is awesome sir!

[@augustusbetucius2931]

Great, Reverend makes a near proper Tele, after I've given on trying to make that Buckshot work. They are probably the best made guitars out there today. Their necks are so damn consistent, it's unbelievable. guess , I'm going to be getting another Reverend then.

[@edwardv4546]

Definitely appreciate the lesson!

[@marcelomantovanimusic]

Muito Obrigado pela video aula! Excellent material!!

[@Fender5621]

Thanks for this informative video!!!

[@got2rock4]

Great tutorial 😎

[@alphasportstv]

Great lesson Greg :)

[@wyldmanwgrable]

Im a pretty fair picker but this gives me a lot to work with. Much appreciated.

[@jimmyc5498]

Awesome rehash of the previous cluckin f….n. We get a little more each time. Thank you sir.

[@KevinSaundersPaperAirplaneGuru]

Love the tutorial!!

[@Idevournarcissist]

Ohhh damn …this is solid gold

[@JanPanCygan]

Super lesson

[@MrJrollins]

greg love you man wish i could study with you

[@jamescosey9398]

Thanks Greg

[@RudiOhnesorge]

probably the most intelligent guitar player out there!

[@papasmamas1]

Greg K. is wild.

[@behnamzadeh1936]

very best of Best first class.thanks

[@hansjoit9403]

Love that shirt

[@briane.paulson]

The goat because he tells baaaaad jokes.

[@larryholland7192]

Awesome X 10 Thanks!!

[@davegeldernick1384]

alway enjoy the flick tyvm

[@lawrencetaylor4101]

You, Sir, are a master chickenpickologist. I don't use a pick, and I don't use nails since I'm a therapist. So I play with the pads of my fingers. I've got lots of practice to do, but this was great for teaching the basics. Shouldn't you be able to use any finger to replace the thumb? Maybe we can have a flock of chickens?

[@ultrakool]

as a side note, greg has a fantastic voice for radio...and a face, too😆j/k

[@nayaleezy]

great

[@Welinwms]

Greg...🙏🎼🎸

[@johnjo8024]

Master!

[@MrDavemiley]

Do they make this tele's with out that Ash Tray bridge ?

[@russlgtr]

Does a compressor help? Thank you I would pay to see his stand up comedy

[@larryholland7192]

Awesome X 10

[@Morten_Nielsen1979]

"The chicken takes flight" 😂

[@Ozman77]

My first finger is on the G string and my thumb is on the G string. I hear ya brotha!

[@macguitars]

Hey man thanks for the opening honesty.

[@vitalsound1727]

What I’d give to be able to study with you for a month

[@judwatkins9478]

How do we thank this guy? $100./hour lesson here.

[@michaelcarson8534]

That's what I say, "something like that " lol. Chicken picking is cool.

[@johnnyx9892]

Such massive Kochery.......

[@jan-hugos]

Hej ! Finns det tabulatur/noter på detta?

[@enioair]

Sound da like Black Magic from crossroads

[@johnmcevoy3598]

A true freak. So good it's just silly.

[@ladyluckdrums]

Wow........wow.......(mind blown)....

[@robyndaigneault5390]

with regard to travis picking pain: if you can endure the left hand, you can endure the left!!!