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Alternating
Bass Thumb technique
Alternating Bass is an absolutely crucial acoustic
guitar picking technique. It's the bedrock of all
kinds of acoustic picking styles and crops up in
all kinds of folk, rock, jazz and country music,
too. So it's a technique that is well worth getting
to grips with. In this lesson we break the technique
down to its bare bones and at the end there's a
cool piece of ragtime to play that employs this
alternating bass technique to full effect.
In Alternating
Bass the thumb propels the rhythm along by alternating
most commonly between root and octave, root and
3rd, and root and 5th. These thumb strikes invariably
occur on the beat while your picking fingers pick
a pattern around it. Mastering this technique is
a process that requires patience, persistence and
practice.
This technique
requires excellent thumb and finger independence.
In Alternating Bass the thumb propels the rhythm
along by alternating most commonly between root
and octave (Fig. 1), root and 3rd (Fig.2), and root
and 5th (Fig. 3). In the interests of absolute clarity,
let's explain what we mean by root and 3rd, 5th,
octave etc. To do that, we need to make a brief
excursion into harmony. Don't worry! If you can
count from 1 to 8 you'll be fine. In Western music
a scale has 8 notes, or 8 degrees. These are also
known by the numbers 1 to 8, with 1 being the root
or keynote. In the scale of C, 1 is obviously the
note or chord of C. Count up 3 and you arrive at
the note E, so this is your 3rd. Count up 5 and
you get to G, the 5th. By the time you get to 8
you are back to C, only this time you are an octave
higher. This table should help:
Key of C
C (1) D (2) E (3) F (4) G (5) A (6) B (7) C (8)
Key of G
G (1) A (2) B (3) C (4) D (5) E (6) F # (7) G (8)
This numbering
system is consistent across all keys, major and
minor. Incidentally, numbers are also used to denote
chord progressions. Hence if someone asks you to
play a 1, 4, 5 in the key of G, a quick look at
the table above will tell you that the chords you
need are G, C and D. By the way you will often see
these numbers written as Roman numerals: I, IV,
V (1, 4, 5). These alternating thumb strikes usually
occur on the beat, while your fingers pick a pattern
around and in between the thumb beats. Let me say
here and now, loud and clear: YOUR THUMB IS NOT
GOING TO WANT TO DO THIS! Mastering this technique
is a process that requires patience, persistence
and practice. Rather like an Olympic runner has
to train his or her body to withstand the rigours
of competition, you are going to have to train your
thumb to perform. But look on the bright side; it's
not as tiring as running around a track. This Alternating
Bass technique is the bedrock of all kinds of acoustic
picking styles. For instance, you can't play ragtime
guitar properly without it. Alternating Bass crops
up in all kinds of folk, rock, jazz and country
music, too. So it's a technique that is well worth
getting to grips with.
Grab your guitar
and let’s get started. Remember the fingerstyle
rule of thumb regarding which fingers play which
strings. The thumb (p) picks the E, A and D strings,
the index finger (i) minds the G string, the middle
finger (m) takes care of the B string, while the
ring finger (a) plucks the high E string.
Pima picking
hand convention
p = thumb
i = index finger
m = middle finer
a = ring finger
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