Will good jazz schools accept a thumb player?

[Jimmy blue note]

So I think the answer is as always - how well can you play?

And by well that’s not necessarily how fast, just can you play the music and are you prepared to do the technical work necessary. While unusual it’s not like no one has done this before. Otoh a lot depends on who your teacher is.

In my opinion the best teachers, or the most effective ones are those that teach beyond their own preferences or limitations. The best teachers care about the music and not about how THEY personally make it, or at least not impose their own filters on the development of a student.
My best teachers didn't like to dwell on their own technique, except to answer specific questions on their choices. They let the students find their personal way to their music and taught the daunting task of musical knowledge and the integration of approaches. My best teachers never insisted that you "Do like me." As to how this fits while looking for a good fit in a teacher or school, shop around for schools and teachers who will reflect this. Talk to other students and find out the reputations of the individual instructors. Many a talented music student was derailed by not taking the time to choose the best teachers for them.
You're not there to become a clone on their terms, but yourself on yours. Don't buy into limitations. Could you imagine going to a school because you wanted to learn to play like Django? First day: We're going to hold your left hand in this fire and burn your fingers off... or you can have them surgically removed if you're not really serious."
Hmmm, I'm a piano player. I want to play like Art Tatum. OK please proceed to the blinding room before we begin.

[pamosmusic]

In my opinion the best teachers, or the most effective ones are those that teach beyond their own preferences or limitations. The best teachers care about the music and not about how THEY personally make it, or at least not impose their own filters on the development of a student.
My best teachers didn't like to dwell on their own technique, except to answer specific questions on their choices. They let the students find their personal way to their music and taught the daunting task of musical knowledge and the integration of approaches. My best teachers never insisted that you "Do like me." As to how this fits while looking for a good fit in a teacher or school, shop around for schools and teachers who will reflect this. Talk to other students and find out the reputations of the individual instructors. Many a talented music student was derailed by not taking the time to choose the best teachers for them.
You're not there to become a clone on their terms, but yourself on yours. Don't buy into limitations. Could you imagine going to a school because you wanted to learn to play like Django? First day: We're going to hold your left hand in this fire and burn your fingers off... or you can have them surgically removed if you're not really serious."
Hmmm, I'm a piano player. I want to play like Art Tatum. OK please proceed to the blinding room before we begin.

Philosophically yeah, but I think Christian is probably referring to the utility of having a teacher who is really competent with their thumb to help a person navigate some of those technical challenges. Someone who never does that might be less equipped to help a student get the most out of their choice in that respect.

There's also a lot of utility in studying with someone who has an opposite perspective, but that's a little different.

[Christian Miller]

Speaking for myself, if someone comes to me for lessons who has the technical side handled I personally am not going to spend time on that.

If they don't, that will need to be addressed, and it's part of the gig. If they want to play with their thumb but don't have it down well enough to play what they want or need to with it, I'm going to struggle on how to advise.

Perhaps in that latter case it might actually be quite a good thing to have a teacher with a definite and set technical approach (that demonstrably works.)

I don't think most teachers have a bunch of different approaches they can teach. Most have one. Perhaps some don't have a technically worked out way to teach technique at all?

When I taught in higher edu I did find myself addressing some technical issues with students. I did this because they were having trouble playing the music they wanted to, and I thought I could help. (Clearly I'm doing it wrong lol.) This wasn't a school on a par with Julliard or anything, but they were all at least competent players in their chosen genres.

Anecdotally, for whatever reason, I think it's quite common to go through higher education as a jazz guitar student without much technical input at all from your teacher. One would hope this is because the player at this level has transcended the necessary technical level required to participate in the performance side of the course. (In practice I think many young guitarists are pretty technically oriented anyway, and it may be good to get away from all of that.) If this is the case, this brings us back to the audition process and I daresay, the school. Not every teacher is Mick Goodrick or Jim Hall, but conversely not every teacher gets Mick Goodrick or Jim Hall's students.

Hopefully, again, a given institution will know its teaching faculty well enough to pair the student with the appropriate teacher.

So back to point one, if you are want to play with your thumb, get good at playing with your thumb. I think if you do that, it'll be fine, but you should probably make sure you can play a few Real Book bop heads and stuff. This seems uncontroversial, surely? These are common assessment criteria both in education and the wild?

[eddie chai]

Still been reading all the posts, and thank u to everyone.

i'm pretty confident i can play donna lee/ billies bounce @ circa 180bpm in a few months. I can play upstrokes with my thumb. It doesn't sound perfect, but at least i dont get that flicky twangy sound when the string catches the lip of the thumb. It's not a problem on the lower strings, but sounds pretty terrible if u do a bad upstroke on the high e-string. i use a nail file to get file off dead skin which makes up the lip on my thumb. For the high E string, I make sure my thumb lands on the pickup after the downstroke, so that it does not travel too far (i.e. all the way to the body of the guitar), hence I can perform an upstroke right afterwards. I play on a strat btw . It is a trade-off between speed and volume; i just can't alternate pick with my thumb super fast while getting that fat fleshy finger to pluck the string good. The faster I try to play while alternate picking with my thumb, the more it i need to just brush the string rather than pluck it.

Alternate picking with the thumb ends up sounding a bit worse and less homogenous, but is way less taxing than spamming thumb downstrokes. I think once I develop control over faster alternate picking, I can make the downstrokes softer so that the upstrokes (that I have little dynamic control over) don't stand out for being quieter.

I think the next step is hammer ons, hammer ons! I don't know how far my wonky-ass technique will take me. Sadly I will probably never play like Matteo Mancuso.

[pamosmusic]

Anecdotally, for whatever reason, I think it's quite common to go through higher education as a jazz guitar student without much technical input at all from your teacher. One would hope this is because the player at this level has transcended the necessary technical level required to participate in the performance side of the course.

Yeah this is interesting. I didn't get a ton of mechanical technical input from my teachers and I ... erm ... had not transcended much of anything.

One thing I found was really helpful was that I got shoved into eight semesters of classical lessons too and I was forced to start thinking about technique in a very problem-solvy sort of way. You don't take your technical system and try to fit it over the Gigue from the Cello Suite No. 3 or whatever. You take the Gigue from the Cello Suite No. 3 and work out, passage by passage, what will work best.

I think a lot of electric guitarists expect the right hand to fall into a system -- economy picking, benson picking whatever -- and if that doesn't work for folks, it becomes kind of a struggle or a hunt for a system that does work. And I usually just tell folks to sit with something -- short transcription or bebop head -- and plan out how they want to articulate, then write in the picking. If you do that with a couple tunes or transcriptions, your hand starts to make the kind of choices it needs to make. The same way a classical guitarist can sight-read with reasonably efficient technique.

I just think a lot of electric guitarists are either extremely systematic about their picking or don't think about it much at all. Just taking the time to make decisions has been pretty fruitful for me.

[pamosmusic]

I think the next step is hammer ons, hammer ons! I don't know how far my wonky-ass technique will take me.

This is a fun can of worms.

Sadly I will probably never play like Matteo Mancuso.

If there's one thing everyone on this thread agrees on, it's that you don't need to.

Onward.

[supersoul]

Still been reading all the posts, and thank u to everyone.

i'm pretty confident i can play donna lee/ billies bounce @ circa 180bpm in a few months. I can play upstrokes with my thumb. It doesn't sound perfect, but at least i dont get that flicky twangy sound when the string catches the lip of the thumb. It's not a problem on the lower strings, but sounds pretty terrible if u do a bad upstroke on the high e-string. i use a nail file to get file off dead skin which makes up the lip on my thumb. For the high E string, I make sure my thumb lands on the pickup after the downstroke, so that it does not travel too far (i.e. all the way to the body of the guitar), hence I can perform an upstroke right afterwards. I play on a strat btw . It is a trade-off between speed and volume; i just can't alternate pick with my thumb super fast while getting that fat fleshy finger to pluck the string good. The faster I try to play while alternate picking with my thumb, the more it i need to just brush the string rather than pluck it.

Alternate picking with the thumb ends up sounding a bit worse and less homogenous, but is way less taxing than spamming thumb downstrokes. I think once I develop control over faster alternate picking, I can make the downstrokes softer so that the upstrokes (that I have little dynamic control over) don't stand out for being quieter.

I think the next step is hammer ons, hammer ons! I don't know how far my wonky-ass technique will take me. Sadly I will probably never play like Matteo Mancuso.

I've found that thumb upstrokes are only somewhat useful. I'd really focus on your fretting hand, figuring out finger movements that let you play what you want in a way that feels natural. There is most likely a way, but it's up to you to find it, and sometimes it's not immediately obvious.

I can play a few Charlie Parker heads with just my thumb, including Donna Lee. I could already play them with a pick, but I had to learn new movements with my left hand. A couple solutions were to use larger pull-offs of say a major third, and to slide up into notes.

It's definitely doable, and I'm like you, I really like the sound of my thumb over what I can get with a plectrum.

[pawlowski6132]

Who cares if you don't like the tone. Use a pick any way especially if your whole college career depends on it.

Do you really need me to tell you that?

[pamosmusic]

Who cares if you don't like the tone. Use a pick any way especially if your whole college career depends on it.

Do you really need me to tell you that?

We do not.

And for what it’s worth I believe his question could be reframed as “does my whole college career depend on it.”

Which folks seem to agree it does not.

I’m the skeptic here and I just think he’s got some stuff to work on to make sure it’s together for his auditions.

[Christian Miller]

Yeah this is interesting. I didn't get a ton of mechanical technical input from my teachers and I ... erm ... had not transcended much of anything.

One thing I found was really helpful was that I got shoved into eight semesters of classical lessons too and I was forced to start thinking about technique in a very problem-solvy sort of way. You don't take your technical system and try to fit it over the Gigue from the Cello Suite No. 3 or whatever. You take the Gigue from the Cello Suite No. 3 and work out, passage by passage, what will work best.

I think a lot of electric guitarists expect the right hand to fall into a system -- economy picking, benson picking whatever -- and if that doesn't work for folks, it becomes kind of a struggle or a hunt for a system that does work. And I usually just tell folks to sit with something -- short transcription or bebop head -- and plan out how they want to articulate, then write in the picking. If you do that with a couple tunes or transcriptions, your hand starts to make the kind of choices it needs to make. The same way a classical guitarist can sight-read with reasonably efficient technique.

I just think a lot of electric guitarists are either extremely systematic about their picking or don't think about it much at all. Just taking the time to make decisions has been pretty fruitful for me.

A lot of technique is downstream of how you position your hand and make a stroke. This is something that is a lot more specified in classical guitar. In fact that is technique to me, not whether you use an up or down stroke

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[paulkogut]

Taking a step back, I think the universal question becomes how carefully do you curate your artistic vision vs how broad of a palette of styles and techniques do you cultivate?

Best wishes for everyone's music!

PK

[Dean_G]

You don't have to play like anyone else. Jazz school will tell you otherwise and take your money. Fuck jazz school. Play the thing anyway you want. Go hang at some gigs, pick up tips, learn what you like to hear. Go to school for astro physics or something, just not "jazz" school.

[pamosmusic]

All good points. All good points.

[lammie200]

OP, take this all with a grain of salt and seek outside counsel. This place is both a good and bad place for advice, IMHO.