I've played both the barred and "thumbed" F chords as long as I can remember---currently trying to remember last week---but the value of the thumbed version started to hit home in the early sixties when I had the chance to watch the great country blues players up close. I was hearing all these wonderful licks and runs but their left hands seemed almost motionless. It was as though they were holding onto a ball bat or a golf club. Yogi Berra is quoted as saying "You can observe a lot just by watching" but that wasn't necessarily true with those guys.

Some years back, I taped a PBS special featuring a reunion concert by the Everly Brothers. The history portion featured very short clips of Ike and Mose and if you play that part over and over, you can start to make out what they are doing. Of course the thumbed F pattern figures strongly in their playing.

My brother gave me a commercial video tape of Merle Travis containing performances by him throughout his career. Of course he used the thumbed F pattern as the root chord for almost every key. He also used a thumbed D pattern a lot and added the fourth finger on the fourth string. He always tried to get two correct bass notes for his alternating thumb picking style. He also used a thumbed C pattern made like an A-7 at the fifth fret. You could really just barre all the strings at the fifth fret and not sound the fifth string but he use the thumb and index finger.

I think Blind Gary Davis' great show piece "United States March" would be impossible to play if you didn't start out in a thumbed F. Come to think of it it's almost impossible to play anyway.

Still, Chet Atkins published a small instruction book in the fifties---music notation, no tab---in which "Bye Bye Blues" is played using the barred F. And of course if you're "comping chords" behind a band, you'll be using the four-string F pattern a lot.

This is a terriric thread and, along with the Quinn thread, seems to start this forum on a return path to what I imagine as its original purpose.

Thanks,

- Mark