Floating thumb question

[JacoLifeson]

Hi, I’m trying to integrate the floating thumb technique into my playing and I’m a little confused on how exactly I’m supposed to use it. I’m working on YYZ right now, and in the main riff when Geddy is going from the A on the g string to the f# on the d, I’m wondering if I’m supposed to shift my thumb up to the D when playing the A, and quickly alternate back to play the f#. Right now I’m just resting the side of my thumb against the A string and playing without moving my hand until that segment ends and he does the chromatic descent.

 

[Lee Moses]

Hi, I’m trying to integrate the floating thumb technique into my playing and I’m a little confused on how exactly I’m supposed to use it. I’m working on YYZ right now, and in the main riff when Geddy is going from the A on the g string to the f# on the d, I’m wondering if I’m supposed to shift my thumb up to the D when playing the A, and quickly alternate back to play the f#. Right now I’m just resting the side of my thumb against the A string and playing without moving my hand until that segment ends and he does the chromatic descent.

It sounds more like you're using movable anchored thumb than floating thumb. With floating thumb, there really is no "shift" of the thumb--it just lightly falls behind wherever your fingers are playing. In the part of the main YYZ riff you are talking about, your thumb would probably not come into contact with the D string.

 

[fearceol]

As @Lee Moses says above, you are confusing the floating thumb and floating anchor techniques. This is a common occurrence. With the FT, it does what it says on the tin...the thumb floats. It does not rest on anything. Here it is demonstrated.

 

[Watchootognbout]

The floating thumb rests the side of the thumb on the strings.
In this pic,I am plucking the G string while the lower pitched strings are muted with the thumb.

 

[JacoLifeson]

I am doing what gebass6 posted

 

[Les Fret]

Hi, I’m trying to integrate the floating thumb technique into my playing and I’m a little confused on how exactly I’m supposed to use it. I’m working on YYZ right now, and in the main riff when Geddy is going from the A on the g string to the f# on the d, I’m wondering if I’m supposed to shift my thumb up to the D when playing the A, and quickly alternate back to play the f#. Right now I’m just resting the side of my thumb against the A string and playing without moving my hand until that segment ends and he does the chromatic descent.

With floating thumb your thumb just follows what you do with the fingers. In case of the Yyz example you gently rest your thumb on the D string and all the strings below like in above picture and move the thumb to the A string and all the strings below when you play the F#. But the thumb is just following automatically so don't be too anal about on which string it is exactly.

With your example you have chosen the most difficult thing of floating thumb as opposed to normal playing. That is fast string crossings. These are harder at first with floating thumb because the thumb has to follow the fingers instead of staying on one string like with normal playing. Playing fast octaves is another example which is difficult with floating thumb. Good luck!