But I’m left wondering about your description, just to be clear: are you saying your left thumb pointing more up the neck towards the right hand, or up the neck towards the headstock?

And yes, it’s all about getting that ‘thump’ out of the low string, so in addition to palm muting, sometimes you only need to hit the lower string with your left hand thumb on the fretboard just enough to give some harmonic content to the ‘thump’.

As regards the left thumb, though, it seems a pity not to use it if one at all can, and – small hands and all – I wonder if you have tried using just the bony inside corner of the knuckle left thumb for fretting, rather than the meaty flat bit.

The implied wisdom of what is generally considered good left-hand technique is that the tip or the flat of the digit in question is what is best used. And whereas Duck’s mitts are, indeed, pretty huge, and he can probably use the meat of his thumb, I wonder if you’d be able to do what so many of the rest of use Mere Mortals do, and fret using the inside edge of the knuckle of the left thumb. Right by the crease, there, just a bit toward the tip end of the thumb. That’s where my thumb callus is, anyway.

This position makes your left thumb look like it’s pointing more up the neck than across it, but, heck, if you get a nice thump out of the low string and free up yer pinky, well, what the heck? By my lights, that’s more than a fair trade. I often palm mute the bass strings with my right hand anyway, so getting a bell tone out of notes on the 6th string is not often anything I’m going for at all.

Just an idear …. your mileage may vary.

Stevie Coyle

So many positions, so little time.

Personally I’ve always tried to avoid “thumberstyle” playing. Thumb-over positions limit the freedom and mobility of my left hand. But I suppose it all depends what you’re trying to do.

Manouche players that do comping in Django style gypsy swing use a lot of thumb-over chord positions. Sometimes the combination of voices aren’t attainable without it.

Fred Sokolow, who has written a ton of instructional books in many styles, has an intro DVD on “Playing and Understanding Jazz Guitar” in which he introduces chord-melody fingerpicking using thumb-over playing. None of the thumb-over positions I’ve found to be really necessary though. They can always be substituted with some combination of fingerings.

For me, the “finger” in “fingerpicking” applies to the fretting hand too. So in general, aside from some Gypsy swing positions, I’m giving “thumb-over” playing the finger.