Fingerpicking up the neck fretting thumb

[davidbeinct]

I don’t know why I didn’t think of this lesson from Toby Walker earlier. Really fun to play and he does a great job explaining. Lots of moving around the fretboard with alternating thumb.

[rmoretti49]

Originally Posted by ljguitar

Hi Hman-etc
I taught fingerstyle guitar for 40 years locally, and have never taught wrapping barres using the thumb. It works ok, on simple passages, but is based on a premise that you need to have all 6 strings being pressed all the time (also the premise of barre chords in general). A lot of fingerstyle cuts that back to thumb and 2 or thumb and 3 strings sounding at once. It's cleaner and far more efficient and mobile.

If you are fingerpicking, just form the chord shape with fingers 2-3-4 and use the index to press the appropriate fret on the bass. Fingerstylists often selectively pick 3-4 strings and either mute or ignore the others. No need to cover all 6 strings all the time. Takes too long.

The chord forms produced are simpler and less cluttered sounding (and often have a more clearly defined bass note).

Take your bm chord for example…
Just form an Am shape on fret 5 (strings 2-3-4) and use your index finger to fret 2 of string 5 and alternate with fret 2 of the 6th string.

That particular combination/fingering will work up the neck anywhere. And you can do this with E shapes, A shape, C shape. You can always mute strings by fretting the note and leaning the pad back to mute the string above it.

Simpler than barre chords, easier on the hands, and more versatile. Usually easier to play 'clean' as well, and and to quickly move around the neck for accompaniment style play.

Larry, I'm not the OP, but I want to thank you for this. I stumbled onto what you are describing here and it is so good to hear the approach endorsed by someone of your experience and skill.

[Mr.Thumbpick]

For playing Chet Atkins or Merle Travis stuff, learning to "thumb over" to do various chord voicings is pretty much essential in a way a lot of jazz or rock guitarists wouldn't immediately understand (I know because I started off playing rock, blues and jazz). A lot of standard chords in jazz don't lend themselves to thumbpicking well even if it captures the chord. It may not give you a good bass notes to alternate between... Also remember you then hit a chord and play the melody as well.

With thumbpicking you often try and hit the root and fifth notes of various chords and you sometimes mix it with some open strings even when you are up the neck... Sometimes you need to thumb over to get the root note and fifth... Sometimes you even have to thumb over two strings to get certain voicings...

You can make your life easier having certain guitar neck shapes. For example a 2" classical guitar with small hands would be pretty much impossible to use for thumbpicking unless you have enormous hands.

This is a good example of a thumbpicking song that uses the thumb for the bassline.