Alternating Thumb Style
The majority of Ragtime fingerpicking uses the alternating thumb style. What is distinct about the alternating thumb style is that the thumb alternates between two bass notes within a chord on every beat of the bar. The pattern generally begins with the thumb playing the root bass note. On the next beat the thumb will play an alternative bass note from within the chord.
On the next beat the thumb plays the root bass note again before moving to the alternative bass note for the final beat of the bar. These two bass notes are repeated over and over again for the duration of the chord. The important thing to remember with this type of picking is that a bass note occurs on every beat of the bar. This helps to give a solid beat to the picking sound.
Example 1 highlights the type of bass line that occurs when applying an alternating thumb style to a basic C chord. The root bass note (C) on the fifth string appears on the first and third beat and the alternative bass note, in this case the fourth string bass note is played on beats two and four.
Alternating bass lines for other basic chords are shown as follows. It is important to note that most chord types such as minor and seventh chords share the same bass line as the major chord, i.e., A minor and A seventh use the same alternating bass line as the A major chord.
