Tuesday 21 December 2021

Asymmetric Right Thumbnail Shape


"Heeeyyy" in my best Fonzie...hmm...
that's showing my age.

"Thumbs up for Christmas!" Well in fact this is more about how I've been shaping my right thumbnail for a while. I've spoken about nails before but this is a new trick that is working well for me.

A problem I had was my right thumbnail being so long that when I bring my hand down real low to the fretboard and I really dig in, my nail will catch hold of the string, pulling it up and for a loud awful slap bass sound, it's not good.

I want some thumbnail length for the tone I like, so I had to have this perfect thumbnail length balance between long enough for tone and short enough that it doesn't catch.

So I put two and two together - have the left side of my thumbnail short so it doesn't catch, leading up to some length on the right side for the tone I am after! It took me a while to get over having a non-symmetrical shaped thumbnail (okay, I'm still getting over it) but not only did it cure the thumbnail catch problem, but I think it has improved playability and tone at the same time! It's only a minor difference but you end up with the correct attack angle for all positions - when I'm low down palm muting the strings, or when I'm high up classically picking.

I recommend giving this a try, I'm giving it a thumbs up <groan, thanks dad...>

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