apologies if this has already been covered.

i get the feeling that the one thing really holding me back technique-wise is my fretting hand, especially my thumb.

1) no matter how hard i try it seems impossible to get a nice straight wrist.
http://www.adamnitti.com/images/lessons/bassplayer_03/fig2.jpg (yea baby, thats the stuff...:D)
my bass seems like its in a good strap position, or at least its the best that i can get.

2) i have severe hitchhikers thumb. having the thumb colapse inwards causes that whole thumb joint to buckle in towards the palm

3) along with that, i need to apply pretty decent pressure to stop notes. playing with my thumb off the neck hurts my fingers, like my ligaments just dont bend in that position.

so whevener i force mysef to keep my thum straight, my "C" is just not reaching all the strings, so then i have to bend my wrist. help anyone?

(BTW if it matters this is for fretless bass)

Using thumb pressure is the worst thing you can do.

Keep your fretting fingers as straight as you can.

lowsound

apologies if this has already been covered.

i get the feeling that the one thing really holding me back technique-wise is my fretting hand, especially my thumb.

1) no matter how hard i try it seems impossible to get a nice straight wrist.
http://www.adamnitti.com/images/lessons/bassplayer_03/fig2.jpg (yea baby, thats the stuff...:D)
my bass seems like its in a good strap position, or at least its the best that i can get.

2) i have severe hitchhikers thumb. having the thumb colapse inwards causes that whole thumb joint to buckle in towards the palm

3) along with that, i need to apply pretty decent pressure to stop notes. playing with my thumb off the neck hurts my fingers, like my ligaments just dont bend in that position.

so whevener i force mysef to keep my thum straight, my "C" is just not reaching all the strings, so then i have to bend my wrist. help anyone?

(BTW if it matters this is for fretless bass)

When fretting, you should avoid pressing with your thumb. Your thumb is there as an anchor and an aid to muscle memory, NOT a backing for the neck. You should be able to play just as cleanly, if not quite as fast, if you remove your thumb from the back of the neck and instead apply counterpressure with your plucking hand forearm against the upper bout. That is proper technique, and if you start buzzing notes when you remove your thumb, you're not doing it correctly. As you practice, the muscles in your forearm that you use to press with your fingers will be built up (there's little if any muscle in the fingers themselves; gripping and pulling power is in the forearm) and your fingers will be able to apply pressure more precisely.

Iamlowsound said that you should keep your fretting fingers as straight as possible. I categorically disagree. First of all, the shape your finger should be in depends on which string you are fretting. Generally, you should fret a note with the upper half of the pads of your fingers, with your fingernail at about a 30*-45* angle to the board. This allows you to apply pressure specifically to that string and no others, reducing the finger strength you need as well as unwanted string noise. Your finger should be as curved as is necessary to achoeve that position over the string. It also allows you to apply more pressure with less strength. Imagine a strung bow. You're holding one end of the bow and using the other to press down on a scale. Now unstring the bow and try again. You find that using the strung bow (a curved finger) is easier because the unstrung bow (flat finger) will flex backwards more, wasting the effort it takes to flex the bow backwards. You should not however try to fret notes using the very tip of your fingers. That's required for guitar to fret chords and avoid touching other strings with the fretting finger, but on bass it's rarely necessary and incredibly painful to try.

I have only a slight hitchhiker's thumb (my thumb will curve backward, but it's an even curve and not a sharp angle), so I'm not sure what you can do to help keep your thumb straight other than to brace it. In your case, you may get better results by putting the bottom of the knuckle joint in the center of the bass rather than the pad of your thumb. Then it doesn't matter where the top of your thumb wants to bend, the fulcrum is the joint, behind which your muscles and other thumb joint are relatively stable in a straighter position. That will allow you to bring your fingers around more for easier access to the lower strings. The downside is that you no longer have the extra thumb length to reach with; you'll need to slide more. If that works for you though, simply pay no further attention to diagrams of "proper" thumb technique; do it your way.

I also disagree with keeping your fingers straight.

I try to keep my LH fingers naturally curved to "aim " the tips at the string.

My thumb bends back too, I generally don't do anything to compensate. I just put the bottom of the knuckle joint in the center of the bass rather than the pad of my thumb, as described above.

Also, you probably *don't* need to squeeze the neck as hard as you think to stop notes (assuming a decent instrument set up).

Try this: fretting a note normally, then slowly lessening your finger pressure until the string starts to rattle against the fret. Then increase pressure until the rattleing stops -thats the hardest you need to press.
when I first tried this, I was surprised at how Little pressure was really necessary.

great thread guys, my hats off to you. i took guitar lessons for 2 years from a very experienced guitarist and just didn't feel i was getting the right stuff from it that i needed to progress adequately. (he was a great player, heavy on music theory but as i'm realized lately from reading many threads on tecnique like the above, he never taught me any of this stuff, leading to complication of tendinitis that i had developed otherwise, encouraging me to bend my fretting hand as much as necessary to keep my fingers clear of other strings (no hesitation in having me do a 45 degree bend which i now realize not only aggrevated my tendinitis further but contributed to my hand hand/wrist getting very painful very quickly), i pressed my thumb way too hard and this is the first time i've heard anyone talk of using the right forearm as counter leverage which when i read i thought made a heck of a lot of sense! i've switched to bass and am taking it slow and easy to do everything as correctly as i can with my hands, arms and fingers from the get go..i'm just sorry it took 2 years plus to understand how important this stuff is to ability to play.

I didn't realize hitchhicker's thumb was such a big deal.

I can form like a 90 degree angle with the second and last bones in my thumb. probably explains some of my slow, s***** playing

I'm looking at making a splint for my thumb to stop the joint just behind the thumbnail from bending backwards...

Both my thumbs are double jointed and my left thumb really hurts sometimes during and after a long session.

dude ive always seen my hitchhikers thumb as an advantage.. my left hand is VERY comfortable and i feel like i get more leverage with it.

I injured my thumb on my left hand a long time ago... (some 25 years ago). Dislocated it when I went over the handlebars of my motorbike... it's never been quite right since...

Just lately it's been playing me up something bad... I'm getting old... arthritis maybe... the slightest knock can be really painful... I found a decent thumb "Spica" (technical name for it) which effectively immobilises the thumb while wearing it. It allows me to play as long as I stay below the twelth fret... and also protects against knocks...

Once when I had a private lesson with Lincoln Goines some years ago he told me to make a special exercise to avoid to give pressure on the thumb.
I should take a matchbox and put it between my thumb and the neck and start playing without crushing it.
I think this really helped me to be more conscious about my thumbs position and to correct it accordingly.