Why do you pick/pluck, etc the way you do?

[konaaayukeeenee]

I do whatever to get the sound I'm after. But for 'default plucking', I always have my thumb floating after being inspired by Moto Fukushima's absolutely mesmerizing right-hand technique despite not yet owning a 6-string myself

 

[RavenousPoe]

When I was first learning bass, I tried watching multiple videos on different plucking techniques to see what was for me. I had heard about floating thumb, but just couldn't wrap my brain around it when playing exercises. Some time after establishing myself as an "anchor thumb" guy, I started learning 1984's Losfer Words by Iron Maiden (that song still tortures me to this day) in which an ascending chord is played from the A > D > G strings in quick succession, and the strings would ring out like crazy. So I started sliding my thumb to mute them as I learned the song. This technique then followed its way into whatever else I played, and only later did I find out that I had taught myself Floating Thumb out of necessity.

 

[SteveCS]

So I started sliding my thumb to mute them as I learned the song. This technique then followed its way into whatever else I played, and only later did I find out that I had taught myself Floating Thumb out of necessity.

That's my story. I 'discovered' and adopted the floating thumb out of necessity almost 40 years ago. It wasn't any particular song or piece, but doing a lot of recording and finding ways to control excess noise that you only hear on a soloed track. As shameful as it might be for a bass player, I didn't know of Gary Willis or Tribal Tech until I signed up to TB.