Thumb Over F Chord - pain in thumb joint?

[rick-slo]

Just forget about the thumb over if you hands and fingers are too short.

[dnf777]

I mastered the F-barre after several years simply by playing it on a guitar that had a properly filed nut! NOTHING will highlight a poorly fit nut than the barre-F! Even if a guitar has a decent set up with string height at the 12th fret, the nut slots can still be too tall, making first position fretting extremely difficult. With C, Am, etc...a strong finger can easily fret a string, but ask the index finger to lay down all 6, and it can be Herculean.

[Nymuso]

Originally Posted by rick-slo

Just forget about the thumb over if you hands and fingers are too short.

Rick when I see your header I am usually prepared to read a reasoned response, but here I must disagree.

The OP has indicated that his guitar’s nut is on the wider side. In my opinion he should at least explore playing with a smaller nut before abandoning his technique.

One’s equipment should not dictate one’s chosen technique if there are options, and in this case there are. They should be explored before any towels are thrown in.

[JonPR]

Originally Posted by dnf777

I mastered the F-barre after several years simply by playing it on a guitar that had a properly filed nut! NOTHING will highlight a poorly fit nut than the barre-F! Even if a guitar has a decent set up with string height at the 12th fret, the nut slots can still be too tall, making first position fretting extremely difficult. With C, Am, etc...a strong finger can easily fret a string, but ask the index finger to lay down all 6, and it can be Herculean.

Well said.

Some beginners struggle with nuts that are too high, believing it has to be that way. In truth the nut (the bottom of the slots) should be the same height as a fret. It's fret zero after all. But it's safer for mass-producing manufacturers to err on the side of too high: too low and the guitar is unplayable, or fret buzz is severe; too high, and it is easily fixed with a set-up.

For anyone reading not sure about this, put a capo on fret 1 and see if the guitar is any easier to play. If it is, your nut is too high, and you should get a set-up (if you don't want to risk sawing down those slots yourself...). If there is barely any difference, your nut is fine; so your problems lie elsewhere!

[Merak]

My thumb has limited flexibility so I use the side of thumb technique. And made new nuts that move the low E closer to the edge.