Finger Picking Blues Guitar Techniques - The Thumb Is King

After studying how to finger pick blues guitar for the last forty years or so, it strikes me that thumb movement control is vital.

If asked by student guitarists 'what’s the most important technique to practice again and again', my reply is always - work on your basic thumb technique, reapeat and explore the possibilities.

It's possible that the first blues guitar sounds came from the south states and were really quite basic. Weather conditions are heavy and humid in those regions, which aren’t ideal for wooden musical instruments using strings. The very first stringed guitar-type instruments were probably constructed from cigar boxes, had one to four strings and were sometimes played with a bottle neck or slide. These first guitars were very difficult to keep in tune, and so bottleneck playing was a good option, as variation in tone was just a matter of moving the slide position while playing.

In the first part of the 20th century, selling by catalogue became commonplace, pioneered by Sears, and inexpensive guitars were made available to ordinary people. However, for a colored person existing on subsistance level wages, even a very cheap guitar was tough to buy. That said, professionally constructed six string guitars were a great improvement over a self made cigar box guitar!

A picking style very common in the early blues music is known as the 'monotonic bass'. This indicates that the thumb hits one or more bass strings, and doesn't alternate between strings. This allowed the fingers to be creative, as you didn't have to think too much about your thumb. Also, often the basses weren’t fretted at all, which allowed for increased fexibility for the fretting hand fingers. For this reason, players held the palm of their picking hand in contact with the first three or four bass strings, muting the sound so that it became more of a 'thunk' or 'thrumming' sound than a clear discernible note. Big Bill Broonzy was a master of this style.

Other guitarists , such as Lightnin' Hopkins, often used this monotonic bass style, but let the the bass notes ring. The monotonic bass style was employed by other blues men such as Mance Lipscomb, Scrapper Blackwell and of course Robert Johnson.

Robert Johnson

Possibly the most famous old blues man. For many people, blues means 'delta blues' and delta blues means Johnson. His style of picking was at the same time raw but could be delicate, which was achieved by his development of a powerful technique incorporating a strong monotonic bass and delicate answering finger work. In additon to his inventive guitar phrasing, Johnson's vocals were intense and charged with emotion. His most powerful pieces were in the key of A and slide songs in the open G tuning, both groups being played with a strong monotic bass line.

Free Blues Guitar Lesson Download - 'Love In Vain' by Robert Johnson

Ragtime piano became popular in the early 1900s and some blues guitar players realised that the characteristic bass signature could be played in a simplified way on the guitar. To accomplish this, it was necessary to strike two or three bass strings with the picking thumb, alternating between the strings, producing a 'bum-chick' sound. When this technique was combined with the picking sounds of the fingers, a very complex sound is produced which sounds like two guiitars!

Many guitarists, such as Mississippi John Hurt, used this technique exclusively and recorded some fine work. Of course, the dexterity needed to play this style is far above that required to play monotonic, delta style blues.

Blind Blake was probably the foremost ragtime blues guitar player between 1920 and 1930? He achieved this by taking the thumb control to a new, extraordinary level. In many of his songs, Blake doubled up on the alternating thumb beats, making two notes instead of one.

Modern players took hold of this early ragtime sound and quickly extended the chords and techniques, exploring new areas. Many of the original Scott Joplin rags have been faithfully transcribed, and other ways of playing appeared constantly. In the U.S., many notable musicians extended these picking styles and gave the music a country flavor.

Merle Travis was one of the first pioneers of this new genre and this is why the style is often called Travis picking. Chet Atkins was an obvious master of the style and currently Tommy Emmanuel is probably the foremost finger picker on the planet. Doc Watson, another legendary figure, was an expert in the Travis picking style.