[New 12 String Mike]

Wow Valerie you've worked at it!

Someday,

Any method that you can make work for you, use.

There is no absolute "correct" method. It wouldn't be "folk" music if it was.

But, one thing I will caution you about. If you are planning to take lessons, you may not want to proceed much further on your own. Your future teacher may have a method of teaching Travis Style and if you start by yourself, you may be placed in the position of un-learning what you've done to learn the teacher's way. This could lead to tangled fingers and lots of frustration.

Having said that, I'll go on to say, while I did have a few formal lessons with a guitar teacher, I never had enough to hurt my picking any. While I applaude Valerie's work toward her playing, I've never used TAB, or standard note reading, for my fingerstyle work that accompanied my singing. I've always seen music notation for use for instrumental playing that included the melody, etc. If others, or you, want to use notation for things other than that, you'll get no grief from me. I do "read" and know some theory. I learned it when I was doing choral singing, etc. It was necessary then, obviously, but I've always felt that singing folk music and playing folk style guitar techniques shouldn't be so formal. Does my theory stuff come into play on my guitars, sure. I just try to listen and learn. Watch other players and learn from them. Would I be a good lead guitar player in a band? I'd have lots of trouble. Some will say I've done it wrong for almost 40 years, but I've had fun.

I started simply by alternating a down stroke with the thumb on the 4 low strings with an up stroke, using my index finger on the high strings until I filled out the measure. Just an UP...DOWN...UP...DOWN thing. As that started to become comfortable I added the middle finger. It wasn't long before I moved from swipes at the strings to individual plucking. For me it was a natural progression to that "swimming" thing that Glenmark mentioned above. It probably isn't the best way, but it worked. In short order I was moving in more complex rythyms, (tripplets gave me Hell for awhile!) but, I made it.

Other folks I know will add other tricks and stuff to the list. It is the folky way, anyway.

The main thing is to have fun!