Posted 11/09/2015 by Guitar World Staff
Hello everyone, and welcome to my new Guitar World instructional column.
Over the course of the next few months, I will demonstrate a wide variety of the specific right- and left-hand techniques I use most often, as applied to the songs from my latest release, It’s Never Too Late, plus some of the other tunes in my repertoire that I am asked about most often.
I’d like to kick things off with a look at my approach to the song, “El Vaquero,” written by the great Chet Atkins and Wayne Moss, which I recorded for It’s Never Too Late. A vaquero is a cowboy, and, as the name implies, this song has a “western” feel, with a Spanish/Mexican flavor.
I first heard this song as recorded by Chet for his Hometown Guitar album, on which Wayne played the rhythm guitar part and Chet added the melody, or lead, part on top, along the lines of FIGURES 1 and 2. To execute the rhythm part properly, use the standard Merle Travis fingerpicking technique, wherein the notes on the bottom three strings are picked with the thumb, with light palm muting, in an “alternating bass” fashion, and the notes on the top three strings are picked with the index and middle fingers.
