Jeff Troxel is a guitarist, composer, and teacher from Wyoming who lives in Missoula, Montana. He won the National Flatpicking Championship at Winfield, Kansas, in 2003. He holds music degrees from Berklee College of Music and the University of Southern California, teaches at the University of Montana, and has written flatpicking instruction books for Mel Bay.
Why Troxel matters
Most Winfield champions are contest specialists. Troxel is a trained jazz musician who also won the flatpicking title. That mix shows in his books. Flatpicking Up the Neck and Contemporary Bluegrass Backup Guitar explain how chords and scales connect on the fingerboard, which is the part of flatpicking most tune-by-ear players skip. For a jammer stuck in first position, his work is a way out.
Life and career
Troxel grew up in Wyoming. Except for a few years in Boston and Los Angeles, he has lived in the Rocky Mountain West. He earned music degrees from Berklee College of Music and the University of Southern California.
In 2003 he won the National Flatpicking Championship at the Walnut Valley Festival. His prize was a Collings Winfield Model. He has also won multiple state flatpicking titles.
Troxel has taught at USC, the University of La Verne, and Northwest College in Wyoming. He now teaches at the University of Montana. He has served on the faculty of several music camps and leads clinics at festivals and conferences. He performs jazz and acoustic music and has won fellowships for songwriting and jazz composition.
His Mel Bay book Flatpicking Up the Neck came out in 2010. It uses fiddle tunes such as Billy in the Low Ground, Arkansas Traveler, Flowers of Edinburgh, Bill Cheatham, and The Cuckoo’s Nest to show how to improvise above the fifth fret. Contemporary Bluegrass Backup Guitar followed in 2022. It runs 123 pages and covers boom chuck patterns, bass runs, and modern rhythm playing in tablature and standard notation. He has also published with FGM.
Playing style
Troxel treats the guitar neck as a map. His method links chord shapes to the scales that fit over them, so a player can move a fiddle tune melody up the neck without losing it. On the rhythm side he teaches the boom chuck pattern with bass runs as the base for contemporary bluegrass backup. His site describes him as an expert on the guitar style of Chuck Pyle.
Influences and legacy
Troxel’s jazz training at Berklee and USC shapes how he explains bluegrass. He credits Chuck Pyle’s guitar style as a focus of study. Through the University of Montana, music camps, and his Mel Bay books, he has taught up-the-neck flatpicking to players across the West.
Signature tunes and songs
Flowers of Edinburgh Saint Anne’s Reel Arkansas Traveler.
Awards and honors
National Flatpicking Championship, Walnut Valley Festival, first place (2003)
What to learn from Troxel
Learn Arkansas Traveler in first position, then work through his Flatpicking Up the Neck approach: find the same melody in the closed position around the seventh fret and play it there. The technique to steal is chord-scale thinking. Before each break, name the chord shape under your fingers and the scale that fits it. That habit turns a memorized tune into one you can vary on the spot.
Sources
Winners archive, alphabetical, Walnut Valley Festival Jeff Troxel, Pickers Paradise About, Jeff Troxel Jeff Troxel Contemporary Bluegrass Backup Guitar from Mel Bay, Bluegrass Today Two new books from Mel Bay, Bluegrass Today
Related players
See the guitar players hub and the guitar guide for more flatpickers. Other Winfield champions on this site include Scott Fore, Jason Shaw, and Joe Smart. For another teacher who built a method around flatpicking, see Steve Kaufman.