Mark Wein Posted September 27, 2014 Share Posted September 27, 2014 I'm doing a short series of lessons on some of the more basic elements of playing that my students struggle with. This lesson assumes that the student knows or has the fingerings for the basic open chord shapes and is trying to get the chords to sound cleaner. I like having the videos lessons to email to them after the lesson so that they have something to work with at home Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members ido1957 Posted September 27, 2014 Members Share Posted September 27, 2014 Thumb's supposed to be behind the neck isn't it? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mark Wein Posted September 27, 2014 Author Share Posted September 27, 2014 I teach that the thumb needs to be behind the bulk of the hand horizontally but that the vertical placement depends on what it is that you're trying to play. For barre chords, scalar passages and wider stretches the thumb being behind the center of the neck in a more "classical" position seems to work best. Of bending, open chords and funkier rhythm guitar where you need to mute more strings with the fret hand the thumb works better over the top a bit. Just don't fret any unwanted notes with the thumb Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members onelife Posted September 28, 2014 Members Share Posted September 28, 2014 Thumb's supposed to be behind the neck isn't it? I've heard that too... ... but I think it depends on the player and the hands. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members onelife Posted September 28, 2014 Members Share Posted September 28, 2014 "Imagine you're holding a soap bubble" I like that. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members DeepEnd Posted September 29, 2014 Members Share Posted September 29, 2014 Thumb's supposed to be behind the neck isn't it? Depends. Ideally yes but when I play a cowboy D, I use my thumb to mute the low E. Same with an Fmaj7. Probably others I can't think of at the moment. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members gardo Posted September 29, 2014 Members Share Posted September 29, 2014 Depends. Ideally yes but when I play a cowboy D, I use my thumb to mute the low E. Same with an Fmaj7. Probably others I can't think of at the moment. I use my little finger to hold the E string on the 3rd fret for Am7/G then use my thumb to work my way down the E string. Maybe bad technique maybe bad theroy but I make it work. (my original post was at 2:30 am and my brain was not working right ) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members DeepEnd Posted September 30, 2014 Members Share Posted September 30, 2014 I use my little finger to hold the E string on the 3rd fret for Am7/G then use my thumb to work my way down the E string. Maybe bad technique maybe bad theroy but I make it work. . . . I use my ring finger on the low E but then I don't walk the bass either. If I did, I'd switch my ring and middle fingers so my middle finger was playing the F# and my ring finger was playing the E on the D string. I do, however, use my thumb on the low E and the A when I play a B7. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mark Wein Posted September 30, 2014 Author Share Posted September 30, 2014 I use my little finger to hold the E string on the 3rd fret for Am7/G then use my thumb to work my way down the E string. Maybe bad technique maybe bad theroy but I make it work. (my original post was at 2:30 am and my brain was not working right ) I don't think that anything like this can be considered bad technique as long as you can sound all of the notes you want to hear in time. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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