Alternating thumb: Why is it so hard?

[funkapus]

Originally Posted by agfsteve

If I'm riding a bike, my legs know exactly what to do; I don't think to myself, push down with the right foot, then the left, then the right, etc., so why can't I just make my thumb do the same binary type of operation?

Because when you're doing that with your legs, you're not trying to do other things with several other legs at the same time.

My alternating thumb bass is pretty solid -- there's a lot of things about playing guitar I suck at right now, but my alternating thumb bass goes OK. I can play eighth-note melody and triplets against the bass fine, and don't need to work within some kind of picking pattern -- just play the strings I want when I want them. There's certainly dispute about whether, when we do this, the thumb is truly "independent" of the other fingers; but it feels that way to me, in that I put thought into what I want out of my melody fingers, and almost no thought at all into the thumb. The thumb just goes. And what got me to this point was just working that thumb a lot. A *lot*.

At the start, I didn't even worry about melody: I just played bass. I'd play tunes, but I'd skip the melody and only play bass. I'd go to blues jams and, in a 12-bar blues, do the I-IV-V7 chord changes but only play the bass. I'd work the thumb during commercials while watching TV. I'd work the thumb while on hold on the phone. If I was concerned about annoying my wife, I'd tie a sock or dishtowel around the neck to mute the strings. After quite a while of that, I started trying to do other things while doing an alternating thumb bassline -- like reading something, or reciting a poem, or singing the lyrics to whatever tune I was playing the bass for. When I got to the point where that wasn't so hard, my thumb seemed so much on autopilot that adding melody ended up being pretty easy too.

That said, the alternating bass can by itself be thought of as a picking pattern -- just one that's restricted to the bottom strings -- and I've internalized it so much that sometimes I struggle to get away from it. I can do a single string, steady bass pulse without much difficulty; but swing the bass on a single string, like a shuffle or a heartbeat, and I'm in trouble. That I'm working on now.

[agfsteve]

Originally Posted by lowrider

I'm no expert but you have things backwards. The bass is supposed to drive the song and you put the melody in on top of that. Get the bass down first.

Then you can start another thread asking why melody is so hard.

I was not trying to imply that the thumb has to be brought in in real time while I was playing the melody. I meant that I needed to work out the melody before bothering to try to play it over the alternating bass. I agree that the bass drives the song, and when I'm practicing the whole tune or phrase (as opposed to just working the parts (usually just the melody) out), I usually get the bass grooving before bringing in the melody.

So I was just trying to say that the two tasks separately (the melody and the bass) are trivial on there own, but much more difficult than you would think to perform together.

[agfsteve]

Originally Posted by merlin666

For songs like this a flatpick may be a better solution than a thumb ...

Thanks, but I'm not trying to learn flat picking.

[agfsteve]

Originally Posted by dhalbert

I think it's not so helpful, at least at the beginning, to think of the thumb movement as "independent" of the melody notes. They are in combination. I like the approach in Mark Hanson's Contemporary Travis Picking book, which does not immediately emphasize "steady thumb rhythm"; instead it talks of patterns that involve both the thumb and the picking fingers. It amounts to the same thing, but it is doing thumb and finger movements serially and in combination, so you don't have two streams of thought going at once.

I played classical piano through high school and never thought of certain fingers as being independent of others. But they did sound that way once I got the expressive part of the playing right.

I'm trying to pick out a melody, as opposed to playing a pattern. It seems a lot easier to me to play a pattern than a melody over an alternating bass.

[agfsteve]

Originally Posted by funkapus

Because when you're doing that with your legs, you're not trying to do other things with several other legs at the same time.

My alternating thumb bass is pretty solid -- there's a lot of things about playing guitar I suck at right now, but my alternating thumb bass goes OK. I can play eighth-note melody and triplets against the bass fine, and don't need to work within some kind of picking pattern -- just play the strings I want when I want them. There's certainly dispute about whether, when we do this, the thumb is truly "independent" of the other fingers; but it feels that way to me, in that I put thought into what I want out of my melody fingers, and almost no thought at all into the thumb. The thumb just goes. And what got me to this point was just working that thumb a lot. A *lot*.

At the start, I didn't even worry about melody: I just played bass. I'd play tunes, but I'd skip the melody and only play bass. I'd go to blues jams and, in a 12-bar blues, do the I-IV-V7 chord changes but only play the bass. I'd work the thumb during commercials while watching TV. I'd work the thumb while on hold on the phone. If I was concerned about annoying my wife, I'd tie a sock or dishtowel around the neck to mute the strings. After quite a while of that, I started trying to do other things while doing an alternating thumb bassline -- like reading something, or reciting a poem, or singing the lyrics to whatever tune I was playing the bass for. When I got to the point where that wasn't so hard, my thumb seemed so much on autopilot that adding melody ended up being pretty easy too.

That said, the alternating bass can by itself be thought of as a picking pattern -- just one that's restricted to the bottom strings -- and I've internalized it so much that sometimes I struggle to get away from it. I can do a single string, steady bass pulse without much difficulty; but swing the bass on a single string, like a shuffle or a heartbeat, and I'm in trouble. That I'm working on now.

Thanks, that all sounds like good advice. One question that I have: When you are practicing the alternating bass, yet ignoring it, e.g. when reading, how do you self-check that you are doing it right? I find it annoying that I don't have an automatic way of telling me when I go wrong; sometimes I'm playing and I stop because I'm thinking, "wait, did I get that right or wrong?" If I mess something up, I can usually tell because I'll start a measure on something other than the root of the chord and go, "Oh, something's wrong", but it can be hard to tell where it went wrong.

[SunnyDee]

Originally Posted by agfsteve

Thanks, that all sounds like good advice. One question that I have: When you are practicing the alternating bass, yet ignoring it, e.g. when reading, how do you self-check that you are doing it right? I find it annoying that I don't have an automatic way of telling me when I go wrong; sometimes I'm playing and I stop because I'm thinking, "wait, did I get that right or wrong?" If I mess something up, I can usually tell because I'll start a measure on something other than the root of the chord and go, "Oh, something's wrong", but it can be hard to tell where it went wrong.

Can you tell by the count? Generally the thumb stays on the downbeat. 1(thumb) and two(thumb)

[agfsteve]

Originally Posted by SunnyDee

Can you tell by the count? Generally the thumb stays on the downbeat. 1(thumb) and two(thumb)

But it's like trying to be cognizant of something that you're trying to be incognizant of. What would be good would be something like a computerized monitoring thing, so that you can try to keep the bass going without thinking about it, and have the computer tell you if you are going wrong. I guess one of those computer guitar games like Rocksmith or Yousician would be good at that, but I'm not really interested in going that route, unless there is something like that that has dedicated training specifically for fingerpicking.

[SunnyDee]

Originally Posted by agfsteve

But it's like trying to be cognizant of something that you're trying to be incognizant of. What would be good would be something like a computerized monitoring thing, so that you can try to keep the bass going without thinking about it, and have the computer tell you if you are going wrong. I guess one of those computer guitar games like Rocksmith or Yousician would be good at that, but I'm not really interested in going that route, unless there is something like that that has dedicated training specifically for fingerpicking.

That's a good point, but I guess I'd think you have to do something to get it working correctly in time, then it would become automatic. Good point, though.

[TBman]

The thumb isn't really playing "by itself" or "independently". It's just playing bass, usually quarter notes (in 4/4 time that is 4 beats to the measure, the quarter note gets 1 beat). So the thumb is playing every beat and the melody goes on "top" of the beat and in between - pinch thumb and index, then middle finger on a melody, then another pinch or just the thumb, etc.

When you take a slow song like Mississippi Blues or similar songs you can hear the thumb leading the song and it becomes obvious what's going on. When you take one of Mark Hanson's songs in his Travis books, you have to at first practice them so slowly that there really isn't any music evident, just notes. then as your fingers and brain sync together and get muscle memory you can speed it up and then it sounds like more things are going on besides pluck and pinch, but really that's all there is. Just relax and take it slow. Its not a race, just enjoy the journey. It comes with time.

If you really want to see a good example of great thumb and melody, watch this:

[agfsteve]

Originally Posted by TBman

The thumb isn't really playing "by itself" or "independently". It's just playing bass, usually quarter notes (in 4/4 time that is 4 beats to the measure, the quarter note gets 1 beat). So the thumb is playing every beat and the melody goes on "top" of the beat and in between - pinch thumb and index, then middle finger on a melody, then another pinch or just the thumb, etc.

When you take a slow song like Mississippi Blues or similar songs you can hear the thumb leading the song and it becomes obvious what's going on. When you take one of Mark Hanson's songs in his Travis books, you have to at first practice them so slowly that there really isn't any music evident, just notes. then as your fingers and brain sync together and get muscle memory you can speed it up and then it sounds like more things are going on besides pluck and pinch, but really that's all there is. Just relax and take it slow. Its not a race, just enjoy the journey. It comes with time.

If you really want to see a good example of great thumb and melody, watch this:

That's genius playing, but he drops bass notes; he establishes the bass line, but then he has to alter it, either deliberately or accidentally (presumably deliberately, since he's Pete Huttlinger, but who knows), which slightly diminishes the groove.

Tommy Emmanuel is the best proponent of this kind of thing that I've seen. Some of his Beatles tunes really do make it sound like a three person band (bass, rhythm guitar, lead guitar/vocal part).

[TBman]

Originally Posted by agfsteve

That's genius playing, but he drops bass notes; he establishes the bass line, but then he has to alter it, either deliberately or accidentally (presumably deliberately, since he's Pete Huttlinger, but who knows), which slightly diminishes the groove.

Tommy Emmanuel is the best proponent of this kind of thing that I've seen. Some of his Beatles tunes really do make it sound like a three person band (bass, rhythm guitar, lead guitar/vocal part).

Tommy plays "ahead," of the beat too which adds flavor. He's outstanding.

[JonPR]

Originally Posted by agfsteve

If I'm riding a bike, my legs know exactly what to do; I don't think to myself, push down with the right foot, then the left, then the right, etc., so why can't I just make my thumb do the same binary type of operation?

You had to learn how to ride a bike without falling off. You've probably just forgotten.
Also, the use of one's legs in that alternate fashion is instinctive - from walking, which all babies want to try to do as soon as they can stand (even before).

We didn't evolve to play alternating bass fingerstyle!

Originally Posted by agfsteve

I am trying to play the first four bars or so of the melody of the Beatles song, I Want you (She's So Heavy), over an open Am chord, so my thumb just needs to alternate between the A and D strings, while my fingers pick out the simple melody notes, which for the fretting hand only involves putting down and lifting up my pinky on the B string, 3rd fret (all other melody notes can be played using the open Am position).

When I tried just to pick out the melody (so ignoring the thumb) for these first four bars or so, I got it right first time, so it took me all of thirty seconds or so. So then all I need to do is add in the alternating thumb on the A and D strings, so that's like the riding-a-bike thing where you don't even need to think about it, but noooo, doing the two things together is probably going to take me another hour or more of stupefyingly boring practice; very frustrating.

Reminds of when I learned to drive (aged 50). It's gotta be easy, right? Nope - you have to use your hands to control both the steering wheel and the gearstick, your feet to control the pedals (all 3 of them), AND you have to look where you're going at the same time!! How does anyone do that??
But of course, through constant repetition you learn, and it all becomes subconscious. Now I can have a conversation while driving, and not even miss my turnings.

Same with this. But don't pay attention to the "independent thumb" theory - it's a myth (a false impression when you're good at it). Your thumb is not independent; it's joined to your hand like all your other fingers are. They act together in concert. So you need to learn patterns as patterns, with the roles of thumb and fingers together.

Break it down, beat by beat.
On beat 1 is it thumb alone, or thumb and finger?
Is there a finger note before beat 2?
On beat 2 is it thumb alone, or thumb and finger?
etc.
At each stage (the beat and the 8th after it) there's only 3 choices: thumb only, finger only, thumb and finger together.

Take it slow and stay in time.

[JonPR]

Originally Posted by dhalbert

I think it's not so helpful, at least at the beginning, to think of the thumb movement as "independent" of the melody notes. They are in combination.

Exactly!

Originally Posted by dhalbert

I played classical piano through high school and never thought of certain fingers as being independent of others. But they did sound that way once I got the expressive part of the playing right.

Yes.

I taught myself fingerstyle from listening to records (slowed down to half-speed with a tape deck). As a teacher, many years later, I tried teaching the "thumb first" method, because that's how it made sense to me at the time: it felt like my thumb was independent,ticking away automatically, while the fingers did the fancy stuff. But it didn't work; my students didn't get it: the thumb part was easy, they all got that, but it still fell apart when a finger was added.

Then I (finally!) remembered how I'd done it myself all those years ago: I learned the patterns I heard, step by step, beat by beat - thumb and fingers together all the time. It was just the most natural way to do it, because that's how I learned the music too: note by note, beat by beat.

[JonPR]

Originally Posted by agfsteve

I find it annoying that I don't have an automatic way of telling me when I go wrong; sometimes I'm playing and I stop because I'm thinking, "wait, did I get that right or wrong?" If I mess something up, I can usually tell because I'll start a measure on something other than the root of the chord and go, "Oh, something's wrong", but it can be hard to tell where it went wrong.

This sounds to me as if you're working on a tune that's a little too complicated for where you are now. You're getting lost because you haven't got the groove down.

When I began, the first fingerstyle tunes I learned were these (from the record, not a book, aged 17):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M3mGV5pDDsM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RqjUWJtH88c

The first is about the simplest pattern you can have, the thumb rocking from 6th to 4th all the way, while the finger (and it only needs one finger) plays the melody. For the right hand, it's really just a repeated one-bar pattern. (Standard tuning, capo on 4, btw.)

The second tune is a good test of being able to keep the thumb on the beat - not alternating this time - while the finger (or two) plays a melodic motif against the beat.

Neither of these is hard, if you start real slow and plot out the thumb-finger actions beat by beat. And rinse and repeat. (I played along with a tape deck at half-speed. Now youtube will do that for you.)

Once you're up to tempo with this sort of thing (which might take weeks, or months if you're not a teenager any more... ), you have the co-ordination to tackle more complex patterns, and faster tempos.

[McGee]

A few years ago, when I was just starting out and struggling with fingerstyle, I came across a series of lessons on jamplay taught by Eve Goldberg. She only worked with a few very simple songs such as Shoo Fly and Shortnin bread. One lesson she would establish the alternating thumb. Next lesson she would add the fingers. The next lesson she would add syncopation. When I was done working through these lessons, I never again really struggled with thumb independence. I also never played those songs again!