Using your thumb

[wiechfreak]

I've found that players like john mayer, hendrix etc use their thumb a lot. However whenever I try to use my thumb over the fretboard to fret a note, It seems I lose almost all the stretch I have with my other fingers. Do guys like this just have large hands, or will my hand begin to loosen up for the stretch?

[EricV]

I think its a combination. I think I have pretty big hands ( we had a thread about hand sizes here at ibreathe ), but also, I think that constant work will help to gain some stretch even when using your thumb.
Keep in mind though that it´s normal that the stretch is limited... if your thumb is behind the neck, kinda parallel to it,m you´ll have a much bigger stretch then you´ll have if your thumb is on top of the neck.
A slight disadvantage of using the thumb, but at the same time, using it to fret bassnotes etc can help to get some great voicings and sounds
Eric

[Mateo150]

keep at it, you'll get used to it. But if you do use your thumb over the top, your pinky is much less a factor. Find positions such as the first pentatonic, where the notes line up in a vertical row, most people who play Hendrix, Mayer, SRV type stuff prefer these hand positions. And hand size matters, but not as much as you'd think. Jimmy Davino (Conan O'brien show guitarist) has tiny hands, and he plays just fine, check out some clips of Chirs Juerganson here:

http://www.ibreathemusic.com/forums/showthread.php?t=4543

I stumbled across it a while back when there was some talk about quartal harmony, so I did a search and read up on it a bit. But I came across these clips as well, and this guy has little hands and pulls off the Hendrix/Stevie sound. I think I see him use his pinky at times when Stevie or Jimi would use their ring finger, but whatever, it sounds awesome.