Ultimate lesson for your fretting hand!

Thumb Placement

One of the most important aspects of fretting hand technique is the placement of the thumb. The thumb dictates how everything operates in the fretting hand fingers and your had positioning. If you don’t get the thumb position right, then you’ll just make everything harder for yourself!

Many would say that the correct place to keep your thumb is at the back of the neck, but there’s a little more to it than that. The thumb has to be moved depending on what you’re playing, for example; keeping your thumb rigidly anchored to the back of the neck isn’t really going to help you if you are playing way up the dusty end of the fretboard. You’re going to have to adjust this principal to suit your needs.

The Three Points of Movement

Take a simple C octave pattern and fret it with the first and fourth fingers. Place the thumb at the back of the neck between the two edges, and almost central to your fretting fingers on the fretboard.

This creates an anchor to help you pivot your fingers around the fretboard in a 1-finger-per-fret manner. This is the stereotypical ‘gripping a ball’ position, which is what’s recommended for good fretting technique.

We have three points of movement for any one position; we can move the thumb across from one edge to the other, we can pivot side to side or in and out. This is all dependant on what notes you are playing and their placement on the fretboard.

Playing the Permutation

Use the permutation of the exercise from last weeks lesson on “The Best Finger Exercise Ever” to really put this thumb positioning theory to the test. As you move through the permutation you can see and feel how much your thumb dictates your movement, accuracy and overall playing.

The pivot and thumb position rules everything when it comes to great fretting technique!

Arpeggio Etude

This etude below really forces you into using that pivot on your thumb to move around the neck. We start on the pinky, which already puts you in an unusual position to navigate the fretboard from.

Take your time with this and use a metronome in ascending tempos set to the time signature of 6/8. As you move through the piece, be mindful of the position shifts and how your thumb adapts as you go. This is the key to killer fretting technique!