Strumming Guitar With Thumb: Is It Ok? (Vs Pick) & Positioning

Strumming the guitar with your thumb is not a bad thing – this way, you can produce a warmer tone that’s suitable for acoustic or classical songs. 

However, playing exclusively with your thumb is very limiting in the long run. You will be slower, have less accurate tones and cannot play many techniques like alternate picking, shredding or plucking multiple strings at once.

Just like you, when I first started out guitar, I used to pick and strum exclusively with my thumb – it felt natural and quite easy to do.

However, I soon decided to pick up fingerpicking (where I use all fingers) and also the pick because of how limiting the thumb was. 

In this article, I am going to focus on playing the guitar with your thumb – strumming, picking and even how to place your left thumb in the comfortable positions around the neck. 

Here are the topics in this quick article:

1. Strumming (or picking) guitar: Thumb Vs Pick
2. Playing with thumb ONLY: Why it’s bad
3. How to strum up & down with thumb correctly
4. Position left thumb to be relaxed on the neck

Playing only with your thumb is bad because it’s very limiting. You will eventually be slowed down and cannot progress because you cannot perform the necessary techniques.

Starting guitar with only the thumb is normal – even I started that way. It just felt natural. However, only using the thumb for all 6 strings is limiting.

You cannot pluck multiple strings like you would during fingerpicking and you cannot pluck them quickly like you could when using the pick.

With only your thumb, you are stuck with just the basic strumming techniques. To produce better sound, you need to utilize all 6 fingers when strumming. 

If you are satisfied with the tone produced by your thumb, then I recommend you learn to use all 5 fingers (or 4 fingers without the pinky). 

Search for a fingerpicking tutorial where you use the thumb for the first 3 strings and use your index, middle and ring finger for the remaining 3 strings. 

With that said, I am going to compare playing with your thumb and fingers. Note that when I say thumb, I am referring to all fingers (with thumb as the primary). 

You should not stick with playing using only the thumb. This is very limiting in the long run.

Generally, playing guitar with a thumb is more suitable for acoustic songs – especially if it’s accompanied with vocals. Guitar played with a thumb is warm and soft. 

Playing guitar with a pick is suitable for solos, leads and other powerful genres like rock and metal. You sound great alone and in a band because the tone from a pick is sharp and loud. 

In this section, I cover playing guitar with thumb vs pick in detail. Here’s a summary table if you are lazy. 

	Thumb (Finger)	Pick
Tone	Warm & dull	Bright & sharp
Volume	Soft	Loud
Speed	Slow	Fast
Accuracy	Not good	Great
Possible techniques	Slaps, advanced strum	Alternate picking, Shred
Suitable for	Acoustic with vocal	Solos, leads, rock

Tone & Volume: Thumb Vs Pick

Playing guitar with your thumb or fingers will produce a warmer and softer sound. Whereas playing with a pick will produce a bright and loud sound. 

Both options are viable in their own genre. If you like acoustic songs and like to sing along, then playing guitar with your thumb is a great choice. 

If you don’t like to sing and like to play riffs, solos or even own an electric guitar with an amplifier, then you should definitely play with a pick. The sound produced is more crisp and much more suitable. 

 

Speed: Thumb Vs Pick

You can play much faster when playing guitar with a pick – compared to thumb. With pick, you can perform techniques like alternate picking where you pick up and down very quickly.

You are using your wrist to control the pick. This is easier to control – allowing you to go much faster after some practice. The motion of strumming when using a pick is also shorter.

When using your thumb (or fingers) to strum, the motion is much wider – this slows you down. Also, when plucking with your thumb, you are using multiple joints for control. 

This is harder and will definitely slow you down as you progress. It’s even harder to use fingers or thumb if you are double jointed like me.

As a double jointed person, my fingers tend to lock up when trying to pick the strings. This further slows me down.

Accuracy: Thumb Vs Pick

Playing guitar with a pick can be much more accurate than playing with your thumb or fingers. This is why pick is preferred for fast pace solos. 

When I say ‘accurate’, I don’t really mean accuracy with plucking the strings, I mean the tone produced when strumming or plucking with thumb is not consistent. 

It’s more difficult to control the power when playing with your thumb or fingers. Sometimes you strum or pluck too hard. Whereas sometimes you do it too softly. 

 

Possible Techniques: Thumb Vs Pick

When strumming with your thumb and fingers, you can do many more variations than pick. For example, you can use only your thumb or you can use all 5 fingers – the sound produced is different.

When plucking with your thumb only, you cannot do too many techniques – I could only think of slaps. 

When plucking with thumb and fingers, you can do more techniques like plucking multiple strings at once (for fingerpicking styles).

When plucking with picks, you can perform techniques like alternate picking – where you pluck going up and down. You can also perform shredding much more effectively – very important in rock or metal songs. 

 

Suitable For: Thumb Vs Pick

Strumming or plucking with thumb is suitable for acoustic songs with vocals – especially great if you want to sing along.

Whereas strumming or plucking with pick is suitable when playing powerful songs with solos like rock and metal. 

Using thumb and picks are great for their own genres. I recommend you learn both – starting with whatever you need.

If you like acoustic songs – start learning the guitar with your thumb and fingers. If you like rock and metal songs – start learning with the pick. You will have to learn both eventually.

Once you have learned both, then you can decide which one to focus on.

The trick to strumming the guitar with your thumb is to move using both the wrist and the thumb. Use the fleshy part of your thumb for a warmer tone – suitable in acoustic songs.

That said, there are actually many ways you can strum with your fingers. You can even use a combination of your thumb and 4 fingers.  Here’s a video I used to learn strumming with.

The thumb on your fretting hand is usually placed behind the neck when doing chords. Although the thumb can move up and down behind the neck depending on what you need to fret.

Generally here are 3 positions for your thumb on your fretting hand:

1. Behind the neck (Top half position)
2. Behind the neck (Bottom half position)
3. Hanging over the top of neck

Generally, the higher your fretting fingers need to go, the lower your thumb must go to accommodate that reach.

For example, when doing chords like G where your middle finger must reach higher, your thumb should slide down behind the neck to provide that reach.

If you are doing chords like D where your fretting fingers are all down low, then your thumb should slide up behind the neck. You can even use the thumb to hang over the neck and mute the E string. 

Many guitarists feel pain on their thumb because the thumb is never relaxed. Thus, I felt it was important to include this section in the article (since we are talking about the thumb!)