Hooking the thumb?

EVERY good guitarist? Be serious!

The reason to put the thumb behind the neck is to extend the range of the fingers = you can stretch farther if it isn't hooked over the top. That means guitarists with huge hands can ignore thumb placement and do whatever they want. Hendrix had huge hands, so he fell into that category.

But for us mere mortals....

Jimmy Page:
Carlos Santana:
Yngwie Malmsteen:
David Gilmour:

etc,

Maybe you're only paying attention to songs where the guitarist is doing lots of bends/vibrato?

I tend to use my thumb to fret a lot more nowadays. It's good to be flexible.

If I'm trying for speed, (hah), I can play much faster with my thumb behind the neck. If I'm practicing scales that run the neck, which I am currently, I find a position between over the neck and in the middle works best.

there is no hard rule in my mind. sometimes I play with thumb over. moving a caged form up and down the neck
with thumb over feel natural. I can move from rhythm o licks easy. and like you say , bends.

when playing barre chords I always have thumb behind neck. and often I play licks from that position too.

sometimes the song, sometimes my attitude for the day has me playing over or behind.
just as my use of hybrid picking; I don't want to restrict myself.

Do what you're most comfortable with :wink:

I have long finger, so my thumb is ofter over the neck, except if I have to play a note on the fret 2 and the fret 5 at the same time and for barre chords

I tried to practice with my thumb behind the neck, but I don't feel I'm in total control of my hand like that... I don't feel comfortable playing chords with the thumb behind the neck..

it seems odd to me that such a universally accepted technique is ignored by just about every good guitarist.

That puzzled me when I first started too. :)

But it's not really ignored. It's more that it tends to only be used when necessary. Roughly speaking, classical players tend to use thumb behind pretty much all the time, whilst rockers mostly only use it when they need to.

It's not an either/or situation. Many rock players can do both, although it's true that the thumb alongside is what you see most of. I can't off-hand remember seeing a modern rock musician who plays exclusively with their thumb behind the neck. The great majority seem to use the ‘blues' or ‘rock-n-roll' style of playing which has the thumb alongside the neck much of the time. When the music requires – which is often for bar chords or for playing certain kinds of lead lines – then the thumb slides behind the neck and helps give you either the pressure or reach you're looking for. Classically trained players tend to keep the thumb behind the neck, but this reflects a long tradition of playing based on a different style of music, and even a different physical posture and attitude. It's not necessarily all automatically applicable across all styles.

Formally trained players often seem very reluctant to admit that there is more than one way to play a guitar. But music, and the way it's played has moved on since the days of Segovia. You most definitely don't have to keep the thumb permanently behind the neck to play rock.

The truth – which is blindingly obvious if you have watched almost any well known electric guitarists of the last 40 years – is that there is clearly a ‘rock-n-roll' style of playing that uses a different approach than the guys who play Bach or traditional Spanish classical styles do. In my opinion, both are fine. The thumb alongside rock style is NOT limited to playing bends and vibrato, and it's not limited to people with big hands either. Just spend a few minutes watching rock videos and see. Check out a few of the old blues guys while you're at it too. Not too many that use a formal style.

NoteBoat posted some pictures of Santana, Gilmour etc with their thumbs out of sight. But a few moments Googling Santana and Gilmour on Youtube will show you that their thumbs also regularly pop up alongside the neck. It depends what they're playing.

So is it ‘wrong' or ‘lazy' to play with your thumb alongside the neck? No it's not. Unless of course you think that almost all major rock and blues stars don't know what they're doing, and would be even better if they only used classical techniques. I'm sure that many formally trained guitarists can never quite shake off the feeling that the rockers ARE being a bit slack in some way - but I'm in the camp that feels that it's a perfectly legitimate style that suits the feel and demands of the music. 8)

I find it more comfortable, relaxed and appropriate to play rock style with thumb alongside. It also seems to allow me to play more aggressively, and generally sling the guitar around more. But when the music, or the mood requires (or if I'm playing my classical acoustic), then the thumb slips round the back. For some songs it might stay behind the neck for the whole piece but for others it may never leave the side of the neck. It's all good. Try to learn as many techniques as you can, but don't be bullied into thinking that you must do it this or that way all the time. And the end of the day, it's the effectiveness of the noise that you make, and the fun that you have doing it that counts... :wink:

Cheers,

Chris

I use it whenever I need to...on bar chords...on certain chords (like D if I want to fret the low e string to make it sound more full)...if I want to add a walking bass line...or whatever it may be. And at times just for extra support on bends or whatever. But you can't always use it, like on some bar chords with the root on the A string.

I don't pay alot of attention to my thumb, it's all over the place. It is behind the neck when it needs to be and I do fret an occasional note with it. That said, I wear a size 8 glove so I have decent sized hands. I suppose it allows me to cheat. I'd say if you are learning guitar though, behind the neck is the place to start out with your thumb. It does make it easier to fret chords cleanly.

And let that be the final word on where one's thumb should be . . .
(lest Ricochet offers an indecent alternative regarding where one can place one's thumb.)

The only thing I can tell you NOT to do is wrap the thumb over the top because you need it to mute the low strings on open chords like D, C, A, etc. When I first started with open chords I got the bad habit of always strumming all six strings and using my thumb to mute the low strings, resulting in that unnecessary *chunk* sound all the time. That was a tough habit to break because I was using it as a crutch to compensate for bad technique.

Nowadays I have my thumb on the back if I know I'll need the reach, or I need the strength for bar chords, but much of the time it is midway in between the two positions. I still wrap it over the top for fretting notes and sometimes for muting though, but I don't need it, it's just another tool.

Well, obviously the Beatles didn't know what they were doing. :lol:

And here are 4 guys also not keeping their thumbs behind all the time. :P
Some of you might recognise them from the pics above...

Jimmy Page

Santana

Yngwie

Dave Gilmour

Try using Google Image search (or even better check out Youtube) and you'll see that playing with the thumb alongside most of the time is pretty normal among rockers. Until it needs to go around the back of course, and then round it goes. 8)

Look like it's good to be able to do both ..... :wink:

And here's the traditionally 'correct' way to play the guitar, as demonstrated by the wonderful John Williams.

This is a guy who plays the classical repertoire, and whose thumb is rarely ever seen anyway but square in middle of the back of the neck. But he plays a very different style of music to the rockers and, as you can see, his whole posture and attitude is different.

Sightings of his thumb alongside are quite rare, although I have seen it... :)

Here's John Williams and julian Bream playing Debussy. You'll see a few thumb sightings. :wink:

Clair De Lune

You'll even see JW giving the neck what looks like the old "baseball bat grip" treatment in there somewhere. :shock:

Personally, when it come to techniques, I try for a blend of John Williams, Keith Richards and Richie Havens ... :roll: :roll:

Check out how Richie uses HIS thumb!

How I Play by Richie Havens

Cheers

Chris

thanx for the enlightening research into this quagmire Chris.
as usual a little in depth searching will provide a large bucket of info on almost any topic. isn't the internet wonderful?

i was trying to make a point (with only one photo of a couple of kids from Liverpool), that there are not many "absolutes" in most things, and it's not odd at all to see players using their thumbs this way. i know i've seen many of the players shown "not" using their thumbs over the fret board doing so live.

i think at this point it's safe to say that unless you are being tested for some sort of playing requirement that involves classical posture, technique, etc, that whatever works for you is probably ok. :wink:

btw, i never used my thumb this way until i started frequenting these boards and learned it made it more easy to reach and hold chords that had been very difficult before. an example for me is the opening chord changes in "while my guitar gently weeps". this was made much easier for me after learning the "thumb over" technique.