floating thumb technique?!?

[wotnwhy]

what advantage does your teacher give for anchoring your thumb?

are these advantages worth the hassle?

[wotnwhy]

P.S. the only advantage anyone has been able to give me for achoring the thumb is security when you move/jump around. but i move more than the horse in my sig, and even so, floating thumb has not presented any problems that need remedy

[velvetkevorkian]

I find it lets you dig in more, although that doesn't qualify as much of a benefit IMO.

[rjb]

After 10 years on and off playing with the anchored thumb I read this thread about a week ago and set myself the task of giving this a go...

...and?

Well I have to say it's been an eye opener as I've found it pretty easy to switch. It's very confortable. After a week I can play most songs *almost* (!) as well as with my old technique. The area the gives me the most trouble is the low E string, but i'm working at it by playing "Le Freak" constantly.

[endorka]

[quote name='wotnwhy' post='217142' date='Jun 11 2008, 07:50 PM']P.S. the only advantage anyone has been able to give me for achoring the thumb is security when you move/jump around. but i move more than the horse in my sig, and even so, floating thumb has not presented any problems that need remedy[/quote]

If we're talking about placing the thumb on the pickup then shifting it to different strings etc., then what it gives you (almost) for free is consistency. Every time you pick up the bass, the plucking fingers will be in exactly the same position (in all 6 degrees of rotational and translational freedom) and behave in exactly the same way, generating the same tone at the same dynamic. It's a way of vastly reducing the number of variables in your playing.

I'm not saying that this cannot be achived with the floating thumb technique - clearly it can, but it takes a lot more practice to get there. In my experience, most students who use the "floating thumb" technique do not have consistent tone/volume/attack, so the thing I do in that case is to make them aware of this, and get them to hear the difference between consistency and inconsistency in those factors. A good way to do this is to get them to place their thumb on the pickup & strings, at least as a reference to begin with. If they wish to use the "thumb on pickup" thing as training wheels, and eventually move on the floating thumb, great, but the consistency must be there. The tone must lead the technique.

Jennifer

[mcgraham]

Fair comment! Tone definitely is what we're after first and foremost.

However I would disagree with your inference that the inconsistency in tone of the students you've seen is due to using/them beginning to use floating thumb. When you anchor in any form, there is greater rigidity in the plucking hand than in ideal floating thumb. Therefore, any 'recoil' that you may incur from your plucks is mitigated to a much greater extent than if you are using floating thumb. This ultimately forces people to play lighter than if anchored (a good thing). What this [i]also[/i] does is highlight and identify inconsistencies in the mechanics of plucking, i.e. plucking harder with one finger than another.

In short, those who switch to floating thumb from their previous anchoring habits are inevitably going to see problems with their consistency of note and tone. It is not just the plucking mechanism that has changed, but how your entire hand/plucking structure responds [i]after[/i] each note has been plucked, which ultimately affects the next note to be played. Those who start off/start very early with floating thumb may find it unusual to have to support their arm from the shoulder, but will not suffer the same difficulties as those who switch later.

Again, all IMO and IME.

Mark