[Dino Silone]

I first learned thumb and two finger, alternate thumb fingerpicking in the mid-1970s, through a few lessons at Eddie Simon’s “Guitar Study Center” in NYC. Guitar was never my main instrument (until recently), and I worked as a bass-player for a number of years. I don’t know whether I picked up a weird technique through those three or four lessons, or whether I translated straight-ahead overhand technique from bass to guitar, but a number of months ago I realized that my right-hand technique is strange.

I’d heard it said that Dave Van Ronk also had a strange right-hand position, and after looking at a bunch of YouTube videos of him, I can say that it’s identical to the one I’ve used for the last 40+ years. Wrist high over the strings, right forearm in the air, pinkie anchored. Thumb closer to the bridge than the two fingers (opposite of “normal”, where the fingers are closer to the bridge than the thumb.

This technique, at least for me, has some advantages, both for speed and dynamics - but that could just be because I’m used to it. It has two major disadvantages, though: The first is that it has repeatedly led to bouts of painful tendonitis in my right hand and wrist. The second is that you can’t palm mute.

I’ve always worked around not palm muting by using my left hand to accomplish the same thing, e.g. when playing in E, I would mute the 6th string by reaching my thumb around, or the A string by using a finger that was already holding down the E on the 4th string against the 5th string, to muffle it. And, when the bass note is not an open string, by just releasing some of the pressure on the bass note after sounding it.

Mostly because of the tendonitis issue, but also because of watching a lot of YouTube, I’ve been trying to relearn to pick using the more common technique. But it’s an effort - the relative lengths of my thumb and fingers really seems to favor “thumb behind the fingers” rather than the more common position.

Palm muting in the “country blues” way, i.e. not a steady thud-like mute, but more a selective mute that allows the bass note to sound for an instant, and then be cut short, also isn’t coming easily, particularly without a thumb pick.

Anyway - I’m interested in hearing about how others approach the right hand for fingerpicking, and particularly if anyone else uses a more unorthodox technique, and what your experience has been.