Floating Thumb technique

unclejane · #1 10-13-2008, 03:26 PM

Well, I'm probably a little late to the party, as there seem to be threads about the floating thumb technique all over the place now but....

This morning I was browsing youtube and ran across this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PPVMBPmrblU

I'd never heard of Todd Johnson but it appears he's a virtuoso jazz player.

Anyway, I have always had severe trouble with ascending lines on anything with more than 4 strings. So I had a go with this technique this morning on my L2500 fretless and saw an immediate and very dramatic improvement in my ability to play ascending lines as well as mute strings when ascending.

I attached a .mp3 of the beginning of a new song I came up with while practicing this.

Anyone else learning this floating thumb technique? Any pointers for practice and etc.?

LS

unclejane · #2 10-13-2008, 03:27 PM

oops try 2 on the .mp3

LS

mntngrown · #3 10-13-2008, 03:50 PM

Yeah I caught the same utoober then bought all of Todds dvd's at a seminar. (lost em in a fire though). The floating thumb really cleaned up my sound and your fingering/ fretting hand does not have to do as much muting if that makes sense.

standupright · #4 10-13-2008, 04:03 PM

like the clip! thanks for sharing

Temcat · #5 10-13-2008, 04:05 PM

Wow, I gotta be proud then, I discovered this technique on my own

)

deggial · #6 10-13-2008, 05:51 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by unclejane

Anyone else learning this floating thumb technique? Any pointers for practice and etc.?

Yeah, I've been using it since I changed to a 5-string. It was very easy to adjust to it, but I've been playing bass for only a few months, so I don't have any rooted habits yet.

As for practice, at first it took much more active thought on how to pluck a string when moving 2 or 3 strings, so I just did the same thing as when I was first learning the bass, string crossing exercises.