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Martin Kemps fretting thumb...?


iconic
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.....there is probably a very good reason why Mr Kemp is using his thumb on the fretboard, not sure if he is muting, playing the notes over a 7th chord and using it for a root or actually just fretting with it?

 

Any ideas gentleman? 

Edited by iconic
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It looks to me like his thumb only comes over the neck when he's playing the higher strings. I'd guess that either he's doing it to mute the low E string, or because he's got relatively poor left hand technique and grips the neck like a baseball bat.

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Looks like his technique has worked for him, being the multi millionaire bass player that he is.

 

Probably not a good role model for others, but who knows. The rights and wrongs of a technique are debatable if the player is very successful.

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I think its a relic from the classical guitar and double/contrabass days where it was taught that the thumb should be behind the neck rather than around. Nowt wrong in my view with gripping baseball style, what ever works!

Edited by Clarky
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3 hours ago, Paul S said:

Sloppy technique from this old boy, too, fretting with his thumb.  I can't see him ever making it, either.

 

 

 

This reminds me of why I loooove Bobby Vega...whatever he's doing with his thumb... 🙂

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46 minutes ago, iconic said:

Guilty 😄I wonder if Mr Kemp was guitar player before playing real ones?

I recently saw an interview with his brother Martin who said that Gary couldn't play anything, but they needed a bass  player and they got him in because he was the best looking kid they knew.

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11 minutes ago, Huge Hands said:

I recently saw an interview with his brother Martin who said that Gary couldn't play anything, but they needed a bass  player and they got him in because he was the best looking kid they knew.

 

Over the years this is a familiar story. I know a band where the bass player is in because he owns the PA.

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1 hour ago, Huge Hands said:

I recently saw an interview with his brother Martin who said that Gary couldn't play anything, but they needed a bass  player and they got him in because he was the best looking kid they knew.

 

That's pretty much the same reason I ended up playing bass.

 

Well...... except for the good looking part. 

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58 minutes ago, chris_b said:

 

Over the years this is a familiar story. I know a band where the bass player is in because he owns the PA.

Whilst I wish it was down to my looks and my renowned allure to the opposite sex, I think it more likely I have often been admitted to bands because of my experience of sound engineering and my love of driving vans......

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I'm a bassist largely* because when we were 13, a friend said to me "Let's learn to play - I'll be a guitarist, so you'll have to be something else...you can play the bass". Seeing as it was his idea, I didn't contradict him. He stuck at it for about three months, I'm still ploughing on 45 years later... 🙂

 

* That and, as I've mentioned before, the gloriously unholy noise Jean Jacques Burnel made 14 seconds in to Hanging Around...:

'What's THAT?'

'That's the bass.'

'Maaaan, I'm doing that...'

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  • 4 weeks later...
54 minutes ago, Waddycall said:

In the 90’s there was a bass player around here who played with his left hand upside down so his fretting fingers spanned from the top of the fretboard down. Looked odd but I remember him being a really good bass player

Was that Bakithi Kumalo?

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