Picking with the Thumb

Lesson 20/40 | Study Time: 5 Min

Course: Metal Bass Technique

Picking with the Thumb

Sometimes it is useful to play the strings using your right hand thumb. The thumb is most commonly used with a downward motion and creates a different sound to pick or finger style playing. It is useful to strum chords with your thumb.

Lick 39 uses an E chord over all four strings. Use the thumb (as indicated by T) to play this chord.

The thumb can be used in many different ways. As well as the technique above it can also be used with the single finger, slap and octave playing techniques as introduced in the upcoming pages.

Lick 40 involves playing octaves with the index finger and thumb.

The combination of the thumb and index finger is especially suitable when playing octaves simultaneously as shown in Lick 41 below.

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Stephan Richter

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Class Sessions

1- INTRODUCTION 2- Symbols and Abbreviations 3- Tablature 4- The Slide (Marked Sand/or G) 5- Pull-offs (PO) 6- Hammer-on and Pull-offs Combination 7- Hammer-on and Pull-offs Tremolo 8- Vibrato(indicated ) 9- Ghost Notes 10- Combining Hammer-on and Ghost Notes 11- Dampening 12- Single Finger Flicking Technique 13- Strumming 14- Finger-Picking Style 15- Arpeggio Style 16- Double Stops 17- Harmonics 18- Alternating Harmonics Between Different Frets 19- Picking with the Thumb 20- Fingerstyle Playing with Dampened Strings 21- Open String/Hammer-on Combination 22- Raking Technique 23- Barring Technique 24- The Slap Technique 25- The Popping Effect(indicated P) 26- Popping Effect with the Thumb 27- Hammer-on Combination with the Slapping Technique 28- Crosshammer 29- Left Hand Hammer-ons with Double-Stops 30- Slapping Wood Technique (indicated d) 31- The Hammer-Attack (indicated by HA) 32- The Tapping Technique (right hand) (indicated L) 33- Tapping with Octaves 34- Right Hand Double-Stop Playing 35- Block Chords 36- Left Hand Double-Stop Playing 37- Double Octave Tapping 38- Chord Tapping 39- Cross Tapping 40- Tuning with Harmonics

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Picking with the Thumb