Opposing thumb placement

Hello

I'm having difficulties with the spider warm up. I appreciate its importance in stretching and finger memory and it's not clear to me where to place my thumb and the angle to keep my hand at when doing this exercise at different points on the fret board.

For example, I think that my hand and thumb position needs to be angled differently when doing spider at 4tht finger 1st fret 6th string Vs 1st finger 6th fret and 6th string. I'm worried that I'm improvising with hand and thumb position to hit strings cleanly and drilling in bad practice. Can you provide more advice on hand positon and finger placement for the hard to reach parts of the fretboard please?

Thanks in advance

Andy

I would also appreciate some guidance on this as well please.

Hey & welcome!

Originally Posted by: andyjcruise

I'm having difficulties with the spider warm up. I appreciate its importance in stretching and finger memory and it's not clear to me where to place my thumb and the angle to keep my hand at when doing this exercise at different points on the fret board.

[p]The primary job of your thumb is to provide opposable pressure. In general it should provide an axis of power that directly opposes (as practically as possible!) what ever pressure your fingers are applying. This means it can & should slight shift!

I cover proper posture & hand mechanics in these tutorials.

https://www.guitartricks.com/tutorial.php?input=1141

https://www.guitartricks.com/tutorial.php?input=605

If you bend your wrist too far to get your fingers around the guitar you will severely curtail any natural strength & dexterity you have in your fretting hand. So make sure you have a slight, natural curve in your wrist.

Next, it can help if you don't try to keep your fingers in place. It's okay & often beneficial to release finger pressure on the lower frets, just enough to reach higher & make that higher fretted note ring properly. Don't completely lift your finger off the strings. Just release the pressure that was necessary to make the note sound. Maintain a little contact, just let the finger rest on the string without pressing it down. Otherwise it's wasted effort to raise your finger until it's completely off the string, only to have to bring it all the way back when you return to that fret.

Make sense?

You can also adjust your wrist, hand & thumb placement just enough to slide your hand over in order to help get enough pressure on that next fret. Finally, go slow! Take your time, it's not necessary to blaze through this exercise. The goal is just to get all your fingers into the act of fretting notes, gaining a little finger indepedence, strength & dexterity so they'll eventually be ready to do all those crazy things they have to do in order to play music on the guitar!

Finally, I have other tutorials aimed at improving finger strength & dexterity. Build your pinky strength & dexterity.

https://www.guitartricks.com/tutorial.php?input=1292

Then, use these trill drills to work on finger independence & control.

https://www.guitartricks.com/tutorial.php?input=1829

I use these exercises regularly to warm up & stay in shape.

Hope this helps. Please ask more if necessary & best of success!

Thank you.

the 'axis of power' is what I was missing in my understanding of the relationship between fingers and thumb.

i will practice that tonight.