A great post on thumb placement for guitarists
Jul 23rd, 2007 by admin
I just read a great post on a new blog I found today. The blog is called “A Guitar Teacher’s Lesson Notebook” and the post was titled “A Memo From the Department of Thumb Placement Correction”
Many guitar players have a hard time figuring out where to put their thumb when they play. This post covers a few grip options and lets you know when to use each one for different playing situations. I actually use both of the main grips that the author refers to in his post. As he points out, they each have their practical applications.
While you’re there check out some of the other posts. They are very informative, interesting and well-written.
I’m an over-the-topper myself. I guess I need to work on my blues face
Depends on who you ask, actually. If you would ask a classically trained guitar player, he will always give you that answer with the thumb behind the neck, I guess, while a blues or rock guitar player would almost always disagree.
I’m not 100% one way or another…open chords, funky rhythm guitar and lead guitar with lots of bends get the thumb over the top…barre chords, particularly notey scalar passages and wide stretches get more of a classical guitar thumb placement…
Ha! I perfected my windmilling so I can actually avoid the 6th string