Absolutely no offense taken, PoppaGator. I know that, in my enthusiasm, I can sometimes come on like a sort of "classic technique Nazi," but any route that gets a person playing what they want to play the way they want to play it is a good one. It's just that (stating the obvious, in the light of what I've already said) I think classic technique is a sort of four-lane royal road to doing just about anything you want to do on just about any kind of guitar.   

There are a lot of darned fine self-taught guitarists (e.g. Chet Atkins), but self-teaching without some guidance, at the very least, a good manual or technique book (and there are some really lousy ones out there) can lead a person into some real dead ends.

Cautionary tale:   I knew a guy named Jerry who was into blues guitar. Self-taught, he'd been playing for several years, and he was mightily frustrated because he couldn't get a clean, clear, loud sound out of his guitar (a nice Martin—steel-string, of course). I watched him for a few minutes and saw the problem right away. When he first started playing finger-style, he had trouble with his right thumb and his fingers bumping into each other. So he moved his thumb toward the bridge relative to his fingers, with the result that his fingers were almost parallel to the strings. He couldn't even contact the strings with his nails. All he could get out of the guitar was a soft, fleshy tone.

I told him to turn his hand around until his thumb was to the left of his fingers (more like the classic position), so his thumb and fingers would still be out of each other's way, but his fingers would be at more of a right-angle to the strings. This way, he'd have some real control over the tone. He'd been playing the other way for so long that he howled and complained about how uncomfortable and "unnatural" it felt. Well, of course, considering the way he'd been playing for years. I suggested that he stick to it and practice that way for a week or two and see how it went. Well—sad ending. After a couple of days, he found it so frustrating he gave it up and went back to his old way. He never did get a clean, clear tone out of a very nice Martin guitar. He may as well have been playing rubber bands strung across a cigar box.

On the left thumb:   I've never seen a classic guitar piece where "thumbing" the sixth string was called for. And that includes good transcriptions from other instruments such as cello (Bach suites), harpsichord (Scarlatti), or piano (Albeniz or Granados—or Debussy for that matter). So it's not necessarily verboten in classic technique, it's just not needed. And as far as my own accompaniments are concerned, since I do the arrangements myself (from "Burl Ives basic" to fairly lute-like accompaniments on some songs like The Three Ravens), it just never comes up. Not that I take pains to avoid doing it. It just never occurs to me.

But then, I rarely strum all six strings at a time. I'm usually using my right-hand thumb and fingers in various combinations, picking individual strings, sometimes arpeggiated, sometimes three or four notes together, but rarely all six at once. With the first position F, if I'm not using the abbreviated form (top four strings), I do use the barre (definitely not my favorite chord), but since I'm often coming to it, or from it, with some kind of bass run, using the thumb wouldn't work too well for me. I can see where if one wanted to play a first position D, all six, with the F# in the bass and the A and D open, the only way it can done is to use the thumb. Walt Robertson sometimes wrapped his thumb over to catch the F# when he played a B7, all six strings. So there are chord voicings where the left thumb is about the only way it can be done. I think this probably comes up mostly in blues—or maybe in country or rock, where the guitarist is using a pick and is strumming a strong, up and down sort of "whack-whack-a-whack-a-whack" rhythm. Jazz guitarists, on the other hand, when playing straight rhythm and strumming across all six, often position the left hand so the pads of their fingers mute the strings they don't want to sound.

Whatever works. Lemme put it this way:   if I ever encounter a situation where I feel it's called for, I won't hesitate to use my thumb. Whatever it takes to do justice to the music.

Well, son of a gun! This is the kind of discussion that makes Mudcat a pretty neat place! I hope we haven't strayed too far from the subject of getting the young'un launched on an enjoyable plunge into the world of music, wherever he wants to take it. I'd say you doin' good, Maggie

Don Firth