In this post, I will show you the basics of thumb & finger interaction…That said, there is always more than one way to attack a problem. Currently (2018) I am experimenting with the opposite of what I say here – more like a Larry Graham bass technique.
Here are the basics as they are taught to guitarists 95% of the time, so start here. Enjoy!
I got a question from a blog reader recently that said:
How, in your mind, can you coordinate both a bass line with your thumb and a melody line with your fingers? I can’t seem to divide my mind that way. What can I do to gain finger independence?
There is a 2 part answer!
The Physical Answer
Off the bat, you need to have a few “basics” in place with hand position. You probably know this, but it’s always good to re-visit basics.
(This is a starting point, and remember there are exceptions to every rule!)
Ideally….
- Your thumb should be OUT past the fingers
- Your thumb should NOT hide behind the fingers
- Your thumb should move from the big back joint, not the tip!
Try to place all the right hand fingers on strings and
- Play the thumb WITHOUT letting the fingers move
- Play fingers without moving the thumb
Let’s take a look at these options.
Assuming you have no physical problems with this, let’s move on to the spiritual answer.
The Musical (Spiritual) Answer
You are probably rolling your eyes at me calling this “spiritual”, but the way I see it is that a “musical, soulful” intention can get us to do things with our bodies that “conscious will” can’t.
If you are playing any type of music that requires you to play the thumb of the right hand with the fingers – whether it’s a simple “boom chick” Chet idea, or a full bassline…
- Isolate the “musical idea” of what’s happening in the thumb
- What is the groove of the thumb? Sing it!
- Play the thumb part all by itself – a few times
Don’t gloss over this – as you will see it puts the finger RIGHT on the nerve. It is much trickier than it seems.
- Next, can you play thumb and fingers – but KEEP YOUR MUSICAL MIND on the thumb?
- Lastly, can you HEAR the blend of the two?
Conclusion
If you focus on the “musical / spiritual” idea, the “physical” will miraculously fall into place. Voila! You have achieved “thumb and finger independence.”
LISTEN rather than watch.
Blog “guitar technique” reading time – 10 minutes.Actual practice guitar time – a little longer 🙂
Thanks for the post and pics. The thumb position will help me as I try and move from being a picker to an occasional finger style guitarist.
Thanks again GE!
Hi Adam,
This question reminded me of similar questions I’ve heard, and comments made about playing Fingerstyle guitar. People seem to be baffled about the thumb playing a bass line while the fingers go off on their own playing the melody. The problem I see is that the question isn’t really valid, because – at least to me – Fingerstyle just doesn’t work that way. This may be overly simplistic, but most of the time the thumb and fingers work together, not independently like some people think they do. At the basic level, the thumb will play an alternating pattern on the down beats, but the fingers will pick WITH the thumb, and/or on the “&”. I don’t mean to sound like I think you don’t know this! It’s just that this concept didn’t really gel for me until I saw the patterns written out in tab. Then I could visualize it and it made sense. The thumb and fingers weren’t really off independently doing their own things, they were working together.
Thanks for the great info and inspiration you provide!
Gary Benny
Adam,
Always a joy to read your insights. Thanks for taking the time to communicate what goes on “behind the curtain.”
John
Adam,
Great article. I have what I believe is a related problem. Perhaps you have additional advice. I’ve heard from a number of artists that one of the best ways to maintain a groove is to tap your foot. While I can keep my thumb and fingers in sync with independence, whenever I get to a tough bit of playing, my foot always stops. Any ideas on how I can learn to keep my foot going? As longs as it’s moving, I do find it helps with my groove.
Thanks,
Miles
Miles big subject here. If your foot gets off, then something fishy is happening. Ideally, like a drummer you should be able to pat your foot all the way through a piece…Thanks for posting! AR
Miles how long have you been playing? I had the same issue for the 1st year I played. For me it was because all my focus shifted to my fingers and fret hand during complicated sections of an arrangement. Once I was comfortable with the piece my attention was able to be put back on my foot to keep my groove. If your a seasoned guitarist then I’m at a loss for advice other than its probably a mental barrier. I have had to break a few of those to get better and keep improving
Gary Benny is right about reading the guitar piece via guitar tab or standard notation. It truly helps a lot. What also happens is that sometimes the brain has trouble recognizing the left hand actions and the right hand actions at the same time. So if one can stay ahead by fingering the notes with the left hand ahead of time without thinking about it, then one can concentrate more on the right hand thumb and fingers’ actions/patterns. Also, play the piece slow and deliberate and then pick up the tempo.
Best,
Alex
Alex, thanks for your comment and sorry for the late response! – AR
Hi Adam,
I am writing a report in which I will try to answer this question: “Can anyone learn to play the guitar?” I wanted to ask you how you personally would define a beginner guitarist?
Thanks for your help in advance,
Bob Dylan
Yes, I like this, great advice as always.
Thanks, that was so helpful. I’m trying to learn to fingerpick a Uke. I’ve ‘played’ guitar on & off for 40 years but never seriously. I’ve had RSI in the past. But now I’ve retired I want to conquer basic fingerpicking. I’m really struggling. Overtime I pick up the Uke it’s like i’m starting from scratch.
Absolutely right, Adam. Thank you. Some observations:
1. The thumb positions and movements that Adam describes are simply the most natural and comfortable. Listen to your body.
2. It will happen on its own if you use a thumbpick.
3. Our minds can handle a lot more than most of us believe. Trust yourself.
Blog follower:
a) You can easily train yourself to play a simple alternating bass part with your thumb, without written music. For any note, pick one of two strings, other than the current one, and a fret that fits with the chord. After you familiarize yourself, it requires just a small amount of brain power, much less than half. Over time, your brain will move its awareness down even farther, utilizing “muscle memory”, aka motor learning.
b) You can easily pick out the melody with your fingers. There’s only 3 strings and five frets (with open) to choose from, and the next note is either up or down, an interval of one note. a couple of notes, or a lot, on the beat (pinch treble and bass) or off (alternate thumb and finger). If the melody is familiar to you, you can switch off your conscious brain and trust your subconscious to find the note. Even the first time through it will be right most of the time. It will even correct its own mistakes on subsequent passes.
c) Soon motor learning will take over, and you won’t have to think about the melody at all.
d) Once the feel of both the bass and the melody are learned, you will find your brain can manage both with very little conscious thought, leaving your conscious brain to deal with expression: timing, groove, dynamics, hammers, pulls, slides, and other techniques. Once you can focus on expression, you’re a musician.
An example:
I started out in the 60s playing straight alternating-bass folk fingerpicking (aka Travis Picking). Fingerstyle was not yet known, at least by that name. There was only Chet Atkins and a couple of disciples, Everyone know that what they did was simply magic.
Step 1, I trained my thumb. I kept a guitar in my hand every day almost all day long, and just played alternating bass patterns until they were more instinct than thought. An understanding family helps a lot.
Step 2: Then I trained myself to read a book while keeping the bass going. That was hard at first, but it only took a few days before it was second nature. (I was a teenager, that helped). Next step, keep the bass going while watching TV. Harder, but it was again only a week or two before I could do it. Finally, I learned to keep the bass going while holding a conversation. That was harder still, but again, the brain is an amazing machine, it adapted, and after a total of a month or so, start to end, my alternating bass was automatic and relentless, no matter what I was doing, and only required occasional conscious attention.
Step 3. I picked out a simple melody (Freight Train) while my thumb played the bass. It was clumsy and sounded pretty awful when I tried to read from the sheet music. So I put that away and just let my brain find each next note. The sub-conscious brain did much better that I did, even on the first try, and stayed mostly on time as well. Another go-through, trying very hard not to think about it, even in the parts I messed up before. Iterate several times and I could play it while just barely thinking about it.
Step 3. Think about something else for a couple of days, then one day I woke up knowing I could play Freight Train, and was eager to try. When your fingers are on auto-pilot, you’ll find yourself watching yourself play music, and wonder what you should do with the remaining brain cycles. The answer is simple. Think about the expression you want, and gently guide your fingers to it.
Another example. This time not music.
Consider the thousands and thousands of young children around the world that learn to solve a Rubik’s Cube in much less than 10 seconds. They’re all over U-tube. It seems like magic, but it’s simply a matter of recognizing a pattern, learning the action that goes with that pattern (from a book), and repeat. It can only be done at that speed by suspending conscious thought. Children are better at that than most of us
Believe me, these are not wunder-kinden. They don’t learn Einstein’s General Relativity, picture the cube as one of trillions of objects in the universe, and solve transcendental calculus to predict its movement. They just do a bunch of simple things by rote and let their brains operate without slowing down for conscious thought. Anyone can learn that, and anyone could also learn to do another trick simultaneously. I’ve seen it. By ordinary everyday people.
Blog reader, your brain is no different. Just train it, trust it, and let it go It will perform magic for you.
I am an old but new guitar learner. I appreciate all the info in this blog. However, too much info, I think, screws me up in practicing guitar as I am all over the place when I practice. Like, new chord, riff, progression, different arpeggio, ear training, trying to figure out the chords in an easy song, different scale mastery etc, etc. Sometimes I feel like I am not making progress and get depressed.
Well I get to organize a bit and go for one small step at a time I guess. I love the process of making noise on the guitar.
Thanks Adam
Sam, thanks for commenting.
Learning in the right order, paced and learning something at the next level of difficulty (not 10 levels up) is critical in successful learning.
If it’s too easy, too hard or too scattered you can get discouraged easily.
The “netflix” style lessons on Youtube are practically useless.
If you are interested, check out https://studywithadam.com – my teaching site. We can interact and I can help you get on a course of study where you actually make progress.
All the best!
AR
Hi, I’m having trouble with the thumb in front of the fingers for me. It feels unnatural and when I force it the tone gets much worse because I have to pick the strings almost straight up due to the way I have to position my hand. Do you know why this may be? Any advice?
Can you send me a picture?
I apply the technique I learned playing the organ; two keyboard registers and bass pedals. I thoroughly learned each part – right hand, left hand, left foot – independently. I then brought them together SLOW TEMPO a measure at a time, then a phrase at a time. Finally, I did not focus or practice the parts I already knew, but focused on the rough spots. Rinse and repeat from the beginning as necessary.
Hi there Adam, It’s quite a while since I spoke to you last, but here goes.
After reading this, it’s definitely where I am at, a mental block. I have got the thumb down, like chords all over the neck using just the thumb and 3 strings, but to suddenly try and fit in some melody, then I find it very difficult.
I get to the guitar at least an hour per day, which isn’t much I know but it’s the best at present. So I am trying something else as well to create total independence.
I have begun tapping out a thumb groove on my thigh whilst reading whatever, in other words mentally seeing the particular pattern for whichever chord and seeing if this will work without getting confused.
Finally, for me, flesh only seems to work ok on steel string but I seem to need a little nail on nylon string otherwise the fingers don’t seem to bite in.
Thanks for listening,
Cheers – Trevor Akoorie. New Zealand.