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Do you Hendrix thumb?


honeyiscool

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The way my hands are shaped makes this technique effective for me.

 

 

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I have little girly hands. It's hard to barre stuff with my index finger and still maintain dexterity on my other fingers to make other shapes with the chord. Thumb fills in that gap very nicely and frees up movement for my ring finger and pinky.

 

Never associated with Hendrix though, kind of always did it because it just felt "right".

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Great Richie Havens clips.

Didn't quite get to how he tunes though.

Used to see his guitars come through Guild to get retopped cause he used to play holes through them.

Anyhow you can do what he is doing in Dropped D by using your pinky and ring fingers subbing for the thumb and the index doing the barre behind.

My "mutant F ".

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I was watching one of those Andy Aledort videos recently (free with Guitar World) and he mentioned the Hendrix Thumb thing, but I think he said that you don't usually play the A string (it's muted with the tip of your thumb) also, part of the reason you do that is so you can alternate between E string Bass notes and lead playing on the middle strings (quite tricky)

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I was watching one of those Andy Aledort videos recently (free with Guitar World) and he mentioned the Hendrix Thumb thing, but I think he said that you don't usually play the A string (it's muted with the tip of your thumb) also, part of the reason you do that is so you can alternate between E string Bass notes and lead playing on the middle strings (quite tricky)

 

 

That's how I use it - I mute the A. The position frees up my fingers and chords sound cool with the muting A string in the middle.........I associate it with Hendrix and SRV. Mayer does it well too.

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^^ Psh I probably have smaller hands than you!

 

 

I was thinking the same thing.

I have smaller hands than anyone I know my height (5'11) and I can do the Grip (thumb over) chording no problem, and a 6 fret spread (5th to 11th fret) on any string of my USA strats.

I say.....each guitarist should play whatever way is most comfortable to them.

The thumb in the middle of the back of the neck for me suxx azzhole... and slows me down..... others can only play that way.

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i'm a 5' 7" short Jewish guy.


it seems we are at an impass.

:)

 

I'm 5'8" and have paws for hands. I mean my fingers aren't short, but compared to my palms they almost look trollish. Never noticed it until prom pictures and it looked like I was molesting my date and a teacher made a comment.

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