Possibly this one:
I like Andy a lot, and have been aware of him since around 2007, I believe. Great player, but he does draw some odd, or incorrect, conclusions sometimes (like claiming MAB uses trailing edge picking).
Having messed around a little with thumb-index as a picking mechanic, it has a few advantages - first, I find it makes crossing strings for cross-picking a breeze; Tony Rice, who was an amazing bluegrass picker used an obvious level of thumb and index for his picking.
I have personally found that as you speed up the thumb and index picking it eventually turns into flexion-extension based wrist picking, which works very well also.
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Tom Hess (if you know who he is) is another one who has said don’t use it. I think his reason was you can’t play fast and clean.
He is totally wrong.
Nice! I believe Martin Miller uses it in combination with his wrist for his incredible crosspicking mechanic!
Interesting, I really struggle to stop my forearm from firing up when doing it, though I’m not sure if this is something I should try to stop or not 
Don’t get me started on Tom Hess 
. I took his online lessons, it took me nearly two years to undo the damage!
he’s a great player… this technique is pretty formidable… it’s a little hard to understand him… he seems to be incorporating struming technique into it towards the end.
would be great to find a clearer explanation for this.
Another guitarist who uses thumb-index as his primary motion is Pasquale Grasso - but in his case, it’s for another one of the advantages of the motion, which is that it leaves the remaining fingers basically stationary, which lets him go super deep into hybrid picking. It lets him do Bud Powell style chord voicings on guitar.
And both Mike Phillipov and Tom Hess when they send you one of their mass mailing emails they sign their name with things like “Tom Hess - Guitar Breakthrough Specialist”.
I don’t see how anyone can make promises and guarantees to people like these people do. Of course Claus Levin does the same thing. He guarantees results.
You can’t help but be really wary of people like that.
Yeah it is best to just start here because at least here you get many different picking styles instead of one. That way when you do find the one you feel most natural then you can go pursue a schooling that utilizes that picking trait.
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Hi everyone. I need to add some context to the way this user has misquoted me several times now.
Firstly, the background. I’ve received emails from Tim (357mag) in regard to his own assertions that thumb motion is the one and only way several players (Yngwie, for example) pick. I’ve tried patiently over the years to correct his misconception and instead told him to look into the other mechanics going on before putting all eggs in one basket.
Upon receiving a handful of phone videos from Tim of his picking hand, he was not yet even getting a basic, functional down/up motion with the pick and was becoming increasingly frustrated in his results. As I’m sure a lot of Troy’s teaching would show, sometimes you just gotta find something - anything - that works, then understand it, then apply the understanding to level-up, practically as well as conceptually.
I simply put it to Tim “Look, just stop doing that thing until you have a functioning motion (of any kind) you can then dial some thumb motion back into if it provides value”. This wasn’t me telling Takayoshi Ohmura not to pick the way he does, but an entry level player that hadn’t yet availed himself of a basic function of guitar playing.
I wish I had a perfect explanation for thumb implementation in addition to primary picking techniques, but I’ve still never really seen it nailed in terms of explanation. It’s not where my picking starts and it’s not something I absolutely need. I don’t know if any of my followers noticed or not, but I spent the whole of 2021 and 2022 almost never doing it - sticking to the basics like wrist deviation.
Partly, I was up for a change and wanted to know how much/little I relied on thumb enhancements, and how much of it was just the CMC sliding in for duty when I used less motion in the other joints. Also partly, because I was doing my alternate picking book and wanted to keep the motions as straightforward looking as possible to avoid any notion that I’m hiding some secret sauce to achieve high speeds. It can get a bit frustrating when a student is focus on the garnish when you’re still trying to teach them about the steak. So I like to leave it to the side until the right time.
I think it was Jeff Goldblum who once said “picking, err, uhh, finds a way”. Sometimes, you gotta push your brain out of the way and then bring it back to the table when you have something. Proximal interphalangeal flexion/extension is best served for dessert after you’ve started digesting that steak. I do believe once you have one kind of picking just blazing away, it’s a lot easier to add to your swiss army knife with other picking types and tools whether they be situational or purely experimental for the sake of pushing the envelope.
Apologies for crashing the forum with a wikipedia-length response, but I just wanted it on record.
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Hey @Chris_Brooks big fan here. Have bought a couple of your books and peruse your Instagram and YouTube from time to time. Thanks for clarifying the situation and clearing up a bit more on the thumb stuff. Hope you decide to stick around and share some wisdom on the forum if you so desire. Cheers!
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Chris Brooks’ materials are first class and Chris has always helped me and made the time to answer my questions on Instagram, email. Great player, instructor and person.
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I have incorporated and am trying out other picking styles. One of them from the pickslanting primer in fact. But I still spend some time with the thumb and index finger technique because I feel it is in fact a viable technique. And several posts on this forum with video examples of people doing it successfully bears that out.
This is awesome. The whole post was great, but I really liked this.
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If we are talking the Ohmura video I am interested as well, because it seems like he might not use compression as heavily if he likes the accents. Which can be a huge ear opener as to what is really going on as far as chunking is concerned, and this in turn can help to refine these motions into a thing. I might have to start really fine tune listening to his album again slowed up to see if I can hear things more clearly. However if he also does forearm circular motion with it, and has that type of control that is pretty crazy! The fast version he accents the first note plays 2 beat groupings of 16ths, accents the note of the 3 beat grouping, and repeats this accenting of the first note of the 16th beat note grouping. And when these accents occurs he is also throwing in forearm rotation into it like strumming a chord but one string during the accent note. Slow it to 25% to see it. It is hard for me to spot, but is he also shifting his index finger from neutral to more left during the upstroke motions? Or is the pre forearm turning motion to accent the down that is fooling me into thinking his is shifting his index finger?
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take a look at this…
it’s in russian, but the subtitles add some performance notes…
i found it helpful
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Good find you are the best!
Ok so is this what he is doing?
down stroke forearm rotation
up stroke index finger pull in thumb flexion
down stroke index finger extend out thumb extension
up stroke forearm rotation
haha brilliant!
this is sixteenths
down stroke forearm rotation
up stroke index finger pull in thumb flexion
down stroke index finger extend out thumb extension
up stroke index finger pull in thumb flexion
down stroke index finger extend out thumb extension
up stroke forearm rotation
sextuplets
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you got it brother! he explains that he is integrating “wrist/sweep” in addtion to to the
index/thumb motion.
he is only incorporating the thumb/index section of the hand… iits not a full wrist motion but it adds what i see as power and dynamics.
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lol I tried the thumb/finger picking thing a few times over the course of my life and one thing that really stands out was that it really hurt my finger; like no lie - it felt like my thumb was bending my finger and for that kind of agony and the really lacklustre results I experienced I felt I was better off with literally anything else! That’s not to throw shade on people who are successful, or want to explore it because if y’all can get it to work, that’s fantastic! Not my thing, though and I don’t know that I would need to pursue it as wrist pretty much has me covered, and when wrist crashes and burns elbow is waiting to take over hahaha
I am super happy with my current trajectory, it’s merely a single escape but the options that come with it as I understand it are fantastic. Good luck, guys!
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thats the beauty of takayoshi ohmuras technique though is it combines two motions so as long as you can do 2 and 4 notes fast with thumb and index you just have to marry them with a forearm rotation of down stroke, insert thumb index 2 or 4 combination of notes, and an up stroke. so you get a breather of two notes before having to rapid fire thumb index.
but i was doing it early and its a solid technique, and i think the beauty of it is for more really fast rhythm type riffs. which can actually sound pretty killer.
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