When I talk about dead thumb, I mean keeping a steady bass line going on a low, usually open string while playing melody or lead on top. Also, I think of dead thumb stuff as a one note bass part as opposed to a walking bass type thing. Works best in A or E and combinations thereof.
So, you are trying to keep eighth notes or quarter notes on the open string and then be clever on the high strings at the same time. If you just phrase your lead thing as eighths or quarters, playing a note in conjunction with every bass note, it’s just dorky. You got to phrase around the bass line same way as if somebody else was playing.
It’s easy to get hung up on keeping that bass line perfect and end up frustrated because the lead part seems secondary.
Oddly enough, the thing that really helped me was listening to Joe Pass play solo. Joe does a thing where he will snap the bass note on beat one, then play lead fills over the next three beats. The bass can fade or even drop out because it’s implied and the fills are in solid time. Then, next measure same thing on and on.
So, I started doing a lot of that stuff. It keeps you aware of the bass needing to be there, in time and forces you to come up with short, cognizant lead phrases in a confined space. And, develops the idea of separate parts.
After messing with this stuff for a while the dead thumb stuff started coming much more naturally. I’m no Danny Gatton with it but, I can whip out a couple of choruses of “Working Man Blues” (good one to work with btw because you can get the dead thumb on the D string for the 4 chord) before I fall off the merry go round.
Recent Comments