Thumb Position Tips on Guitar Video

By: Guest More than a year ago

Hendrix and Vaugh played with their thumb over the neck because they were playing the bass notes with their thumb. It's a great technique - instead of a standard barre chord they were using thumb over to free up their other fingers to play melody. You find that hard to watch and bad technique?!?!

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Thumb Position Tips on Guitar

All right, so here let us take this chord or D chord right here. Okay cool. Let us look at my thumb position. Now, remember what I said is that when your hands will go far down, is that where your is guitar is far down, you are forced to bend your wrist. You do not want your wrist to be bent; you want it to be straight, all right. So now, my guitar is up, because of the studio space here, but now let us looks at where my thumb is. Here is my thumb and when I am going from chord to chord, let us go from B to A, B to A to G to A minor. Notice how my thumb never really moves, it kind of stays in that one spot the whole time, so the center of the guitar is actually bend spot to put it. You do not have enough grip and if you look at the way that Jimmy Hendrick’s used to play is that his hand would go up all the way all the. So here, see the thumb would go around. If you ever see Jimmy Hendricks's play, he plays like this. All right, Hendricks or Stevie Ray Von and I were to watch that there is nothing good about putting your thumb that high up. Your thumb should absolutely always be behind the neck right here. Not on the neck put at the top, right here so that when you play, yes I know, that is the thing but that is a style. It is a style; it does not mean it is the right way of doing things. But here, you have this. If I am chasing these chords, D, G, C, A minor, D minor, notice how my thumb, it does not really move and the thing is that you want to be able to chase the chords as fast as possible in as little movement as possible. So that if you are going from D like this, and then if you are going to play a G and you bring your thumb down like that and you go back up to play a D. The whole time you are playing, you are doing like this. And there is nothing good in that is a little bit exaggerated. But there is nothing good about playing that drastic. Have you ever seen Babyface play guitar? He learned all a lot of the guitar, he plays it right handed. I have actually seen that before, it is pretty interesting. That is how Jimmy Hendricks’s plays too. But that is a kind that you always have to keep your thumb, lot of more in this situation, works smart than hard, right. When you are going to play, it is okay if you have the thumb poke out on top. And I do see people where they use the thumb to play the base note of top. So here is your G and then here is your G over the F# that is so weird. I see people play a G chord like this, where this thumb takes the place of your second finger pointed right there. Just note your thumb, will go like that. You want to pull back right here but I have seen a lot of things. So are there any questions about the thumb thing?

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All right, so here let us take this chord or D chord right here. Okay cool. Let us look at my thumb position. Now, remember what I said is that when your hands will go far down, is that where your is guitar is far down, you are forced to bend your wrist. You do not want your wrist to be bent; you want it to be straight, all right.

So now, my guitar is up, because of the studio space here, but now let us looks at where my thumb is. Here is my thumb and when I am going from chord to chord, let us go from B to A, B to A to G to A minor. Notice how my thumb never really moves, it kind of stays in that one spot the whole time, so the center of the guitar is actually bend spot to put it. You do not have enough grip and if you look at the way that Jimmy Hendrick’s used to play is that his hand would go up all the way all the. So here, see the thumb would go around. If you ever see Jimmy Hendricks's play, he plays like this. All right, Hendricks or Stevie Ray Von and I were to watch that there is nothing good about putting your thumb that high up. Your thumb should absolutely always be behind the neck right here.

Not on the neck put at the top, right here so that when you play, yes I know, that is the thing but that is a style. It is a style; it does not mean it is the right way of doing things. But here, you have this. If I am chasing these chords, D, G, C, A minor, D minor, notice how my thumb, it does not really move and the thing is that you want to be able to chase the chords as fast as possible in as little movement as possible. So that if you are going from D like this, and then if you are going to play a G and you bring your thumb down like that and you go back up to play a D. The whole time you are playing, you are doing like this. And there is nothing good in that is a little bit exaggerated. But there is nothing good about playing that drastic. Have you ever seen Babyface play guitar? He learned all a lot of the guitar, he plays it right handed. I have actually seen that before, it is pretty interesting. That is how Jimmy Hendricks’s plays too. But that is a kind that you always have to keep your thumb, lot of more in this situation, works smart than hard, right.

When you are going to play, it is okay if you have the thumb poke out on top. And I do see people where they use the thumb to play the base note of top. So here is your G and then here is your G over the F# that is so weird. I see people play a G chord like this, where this thumb takes the place of your second finger pointed right there. Just note your thumb, will go like that. You want to pull back right here but I have seen a lot of things.

So are there any questions about the thumb thing?

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