Barre chord thumb position

thomasross20

Over the neck or at the back in the middle?

octatonic

There are a few schools of thought- for me and based on fairly extensive experimentation this is the best way for musical facility and hand health:

For chords and single note lines without string bending- behind the neck, in line with your middle finger.
When bending strings hook it over the top and bend with your wrist, not your fingers.

thomasross20

Agree! 
It's just I've always done barre chords with finger in the middle of the neck.. but I tried with the thumb over the top the other day and can see how your finger has a bit more grip and acts more like a capo, but also found it needs more overall hand movement and was harder to do things with the other fingers. 
So/// behind the neck is ok. 

Danji

Behind the neck for the most part for me.  But now I'm thinking about it, I don't play that many barre chords.

Paul_L

I think it depends on what I am doing. If I need to use my little finger to play a few individual notes I tend to drop my wrist down and my thumb moves automatically, otherwise it is wrapped around the neck so I can mute or push down on the E and A strings if need be.

Roland

Danji said:

Behind the neck for the most part for me.  But now I'm thinking about it, I don't play that many barre chords.

Conversely I use barre or partial barre chords most of the time. Thumb behind or over the top depends on what type of music I'm playing, and how loud I want the bass notes to be compared with the rest of the chord. It also depends on which guitar. Small radius fretboards favour thumb over, and flatter boards favour thumb behind. Then there are chords inversions like Amaj7 5 x 7 6 5 4 which can't be played any other way

Danji

Roland said:

Danji said:

Behind the neck for the most part for me.  But now I'm thinking about it, I don't play that many barre chords.

Conversely I use barre or partial barre chords most of the time. Thumb behind or over the top depends on what type of music I'm playing, and how loud I want the bass notes to be compared with the rest of the chord. It also depends on which guitar. Small radius fretboards favour thumb over, and flatter boards favour thumb behind. Then there are chords inversions like Amaj7 5 x 7 6 5 4 which can't be played any other way

For A maj7, I'd most likely imply it.

Three notes at the most

X 4 6 X 5 X 

Evo

Roland said: 
Then there are chords inversions like Amaj7 5 x 7 6 5 4 which can't be played any other way

X07654

Tadaa!

Jalapeno

re:Thumb - straight up the neck - classical technique.  As a yoof I didn't and have arthritis in my thumb as a result. I prefer not to use barre chords if I can.

On the topic of barre chords - they suck for anything other than solo/singalong performers - especially amplified, they fill out the mids in a really unattractive way. I'm trying to coach my other guitarist, if he can't be bothered to learn non-barre fingerings, then to only play the top 4 strings to avoid the dreadful din they make.  Compounded if you add distortion IMHO - yuck !

Roland

Evo said:

Roland said: 
Then there are chords inversions like Amaj7 5 x 7 6 5 4 which can't be played any other way

X07654

Tadaa!

Yep, but it's not transposable. One of our songs has Dmaj7 played as 10 x 12 11 10 9

Roland

Jalapeno said:

On the topic of barre chords - they suck for anything other than solo/singalong performers - especially amplified, they fill out the mids in a really unattractive way. I'm trying to coach my other guitarist, if he can't be bothered to learn non-barre fingerings, then to only play the top 4 strings to avoid the dreadful din they make.  

That's one of the advantages of thumb-over. It's easier to mute the lower strings selectively

Jalapeno

Roland said:

Evo said:

Roland said: 
Then there are chords inversions like Amaj7 5 x 7 6 5 4 which can't be played any other way

X07654

Tadaa!

Yep, but it's not transposable. One of our songs has Dmaj7 played as 10 x 12 11 10 9

You don't need the bass D at the 10th fret, that's the bass player's job.

You could equally play   x 5 7 6 7 x - that's also Dmaj 7th  (Though I prefer   x x 4 4 5 5 - Dmaj6 if it's a generic "majorish" sound you want)

thomasross20

I only started the thread as despite playing for something like 16 years (!?) I saw a video the other day with some guy saying the "proper" way to do it was with the thumb over the neck - this video may not be the absolute truth... but it got me thinking. 
I tried it and in some situations it does feel ok. 
It's sometimes tricky getting every string to ring when barring - and yes, I rolled my index finger somewhat to the left.

viz

Jalapeno said:

Roland said:

Evo said:

Roland said: 
Then there are chords inversions like Amaj7 5 x 7 6 5 4 which can't be played any other way

X07654

Tadaa!

Yep, but it's not transposable. One of our songs has Dmaj7 played as 10 x 12 11 10 9

You don't need the bass D at the 10th fret, that's the bass player's job.

You could equally play   x 5 7 6 7 x - that's also Dmaj 7th  (Though I prefer   x x 4 4 5 5 - Dmaj6 if it's a generic "majorish" sound you want)

If I wasn't able to play it based off the A string (x5767x for Dmaj7), I'd normally play Amaj7 either as 577999 or x 12 11 9 9 9 for a fully voiced chord, or just barre it at an angle so you get 5x7654, with the first finger playing the 5th fret at the bottom string and the 4th fret at the top string. This is what I do in the F#maj7 in Ipanema, or I just play the top 4 strings. I don't think I ever use my thumb. 

mike_l

Depends on the part

some thing like

577655

I'd have my thumb in the middle of the neck's back,

For the Hendrix/Townshend way

5x7655

I'd have my thumb over the top and fretting the low E string

For something like

xx7655

it would depend on what was being played before/after, but mostly it's thumb behind the neck.

Old_Swanner

Can you get the chord to work without your thumb on at all?  This means pulling the chord into the fretboard using the power of your fretting arm, while counterbalancing with your strumming arm.

If you can't get the notes to sound the way you want, then this is highlighting problems with your barre.  Once you've worked out how to get things sounding good with no thumb involved, you can then add the thumb back for stability and maybe a little extra grip.  This process will show you the best position for your thumb.

thomasross20

Just FYI I'm not actually fretting notes with my thumb...

Danji

thomasross20 said:

Just FYI I'm not actually fretting notes with my thumb...

Why not? It's there! 

Danny1969

I do most stuff with Thumb over and thumb actually fretting the bass notes ... some stuff that's a big stretch needs thumb in the middle though..... 
I do feel there's more control and power with thumb over for most things

ICBM

Jalapeno said:

On the topic of barre chords - they suck for anything other than solo/singalong performers - especially amplified, they fill out the mids in a really unattractive way. I'm trying to coach my other guitarist, if he can't be bothered to learn non-barre fingerings, then to only play the top 4 strings to avoid the dreadful din they make.  Compounded if you add distortion IMHO - yuck !

You'd hate my playing then … I use a lot of full six-string barre chords, often with moderate distortion. It gives a huge sound in a one-guitar band.

It's also true that I like high-powered scooped-sounding amps compared to a lot of players though - and even then I often tend to take out the mids almost completely. Heresy, I know  - "the guitar is a midrange instrument' and and all that crap - but it works for me. Maybe that's why…

Where do I put my thumb - wherever it's convenient. The higher up the neck you're playing, the more it has to be behind the neck.

Evo

Another nice Dmaj7 voicing...

XX4635