I'm six months into clawhammer and -- probably a slow learner -- am just beginning to add drop-thumb notes.  From the beginning, I used  my 2nd finger as the frailing finger, although for double-stops the ring finger sometimesr likes to pick down simultaneously.  But now, as I'm bringing the thumb down to catch those tricky little 8th note "double thumb" notes and fill out the sound, just like you good players do, I'm noticing that somebody's not pulling his weight.  There's my index finger, riding along and doing nothing.  So I'm wondering why this unused finger couldn't step in and get the drop-thumb notes (or at least some of them sometimes) by picking UP in alternation to the 2nd finger's nail driving DOWN on the downbeats.  I wouldn't say it comes naturally, exactly (in fact, it's still  very awkward, like any new thing), but after the frailing nail has picked DOWN, the extra finger can pick its UP note without making a large movement, since the hand is already rising.   Thus, there's the potential for efficiency.   

I've experimented enough to see that the technique might eventually go smoothly.  Does anybody add "drop thumb" notes this way?  The obvious questions: What's the point?  What's to be gained?  Well, the technique leaves the thumb free to stay on the 5th string or to explore other possibilities; but what those possibilities might be... at this point I couldn't say.  Maybe I'd find the finger would catch drop-thumb notes merely in some cases and the thumb would still do the lion's share.  

I'm not advocating, just asking.  Again: does anybody play this way?

Riley 

If I understand your idea right you play this pattern
a. frail down with middle finger (for example first string)
b. pick up with index finger (for example second strrinfg
c. frail down with middle finger (for example a brush on the top three strings or just the first string)
d. thumb the fifth string
All are played as 1/8 notes.

I was thinking the same some years ago, but I found it was easier to drop thumb. The drop thumb is a "simple" repetition pattern down-up where the hand is seen as one unit. The
index-middle finger method is a more complicated motion where you have to involve another finger in another direction. I found it was easier to learn drop thumb than to involve another finger. Sure you can learn this method but I still think that it is more natural to´learn drop thumb.

I have done some of this occasionally, usually when nothing else will do.  In this 2004 recording of Wind That Shakes the Barley,   I was experimenting with ways to get the triplets in the first "B" part, and settled on 

where I'm up-picking with the index finger, and down-picking with the middle. 

Cheers,
ZEPP

If nothing else my years of trying to pick up three finger guitar picking taught me that I was always going to be a two finger picker - except in classical and flamenco which are 4 finger and work on a completely different principle.

The two finger Frailer and Thumb pattern is so much simpler than adding another finger to th emix that I simply decided I would not go that route again and spend all that time trying to co-ordinate another finger into something that sounded good as it was.

I suppose a lot comes from my brief study of jazz guitar, and realizing how much faster a simple pick alternating direction could be worked than even just two fingers. The simplest route strikes me as the right one.

That said;

I used to play an occasional upstroke on the first string with my index finger while frailing with the middle. The note came either between the frail and the thumb (a 16th note) or it hit simultaneously with the thumb (an eighth note - pinch similar to those in many two finger styles). I lost this ability to age, but suspect it is similar to western NC and Kentucky styles I've read about. I never attempted to do an actual drop thumb melody note with it, and only ever hit the 1st string. It was never anything I taught, seeing as I did not have a well reasoned out purpose for the stroke.

Edited by - oldwoodchuckb on 01/30/2012 14:57:06

Not to discourage creativity, but I think in the longrun you'll find the standard method
of M T M T more efficient and simpler.

The drop thumb is not always on the string adjacent to the downstroke. For example a dropthumb
pattern can be on strings 1 3 1 5 or 1 4 1 5 or even something like 1 3 3 5 or even 1 2 3 5. Trying to
get that second note with an index finger upstroke seems like it would be a lot more difficult than simply dropping your thumb.

My $.02.

I agree completely with R.D. here.  In fact, my example above was meant to illustrate an exception, not a suggestion to replace drop thumb.  Once you get the hang of it, playing drop thumb is very easy and natural.

Cheers,
ZEPP

Wow, interesting. I'm glad I asked. First off, janolov has me exactly right, except that on step d the thumb doesn't necessarily HAVE to pick the 5th string. That 4th note in the sequence might be the thumb picking ANY string, or the index (or other) finger up-picking any string, as the musical passage might suggest or require. Or the thumb might pick simultaneously with the index finger on that 4th note. This would work best in special passages. Personally, I'd want my hand to return pretty quickly -- in a measure or two -- to a frailing context. I'm not advocating a clawhammer/classical banjo hybrid. Well, maybe a little bit.

As for R.D.'s comment that the index (or other) up-picking finger might find going to the 3rd or 4th string a long reach; touche' on that point, although the hand IS still bouncing up and back at that point, before it changes directions to pick down again, and so the index's up-pick "piggybacks" on that motion. I have decades of fingerstyle guitar behind me, which might have led me to think that somebody could, or might want to, develop this technique in the first place. Yes, it's awkward, but many things are at first. I will say that beginning last August and continuing all through fall, picking DOWN on a string with the back of my nail was the most awkward move I'd ever attempted in music. But I persevered and am glad I did.

Collectively, you guys are saying that this technique is a solution looking for a problem. And yes, I agree. The good ol' opposable thumb's very construction allows it to sweep down and catch any string. I'm still clumsy at this, but one of these days I'll be gettin' it. The best use of the finger technique I'm describing is most likely to be for something that doesn't come up very often, something exactly like the triplets OldWoodChuck has tabbed for us (what program are you using for that?). I'm going to listen to that link now, particularly as I'm a big fan of barley.

That is one terrifically melodic piece, and very full-sounding. Mr. Zepp, I'd say the helper-finger's up-pick was worth learning even if you only use it in this arrangement. The triplets go by like three-finger bluegrass rolls -- which, I suppose, might be another way to execute those passages, but you must have tried that and rejected that idea in favor of what you're doing here. (Speaking of triplets and Irish tunes, what do clawhammer players do when encountering 6/8 time? As an American guitarist, 6/8 drives me crazy.)

I said up top that I'm just a few months into this. You can bet I'll learn drop-thumb conventionally first. "If it ain't broke..." etc. After months of bum-diddy bum-diddy,like a jackhammer, it's magical to hear how much even just a few thumb notes smooth out the melody and fill out the overall sound at the same time. Still, there IS that unemployed index finger just waiting in the wings, just in case. I'm grateful nobody suggested I pick my nose with it.

Thanks to all,

"Riley"
Bruce Thorstad, Dresser, Wis, where we're enjoying somebody else's weather this winter. Whoever's got ours sure must be ticked.

Rile

There is a pecussive technique widely known as a cluck that falls on the 2 & 4.
There are a variety of ways to achieve it. I use the M finger for my downstrokes as you do.
To achieve the cluck, I configure my right hand so that the INDEX finger slightly trails the M finger
and deadens the string(s) that the M has just sounded.

Using that method, it would be difficult if not impossible to use the index for picking.

WoodChuck has a segment on clucking...you may want to check it out. Again, not to discourage,
but sometimes deviating from standard practice before you're familiar enough with the style can cause you problems down the road.....assuming you want to play traditional clawhammer.

Riley, Mike Iverson has an explanation of how he approaches 6/8 time http://www.bluesageband.com/Tabs.html 

Thanks, everybody! It is humbling to be so new at this and to ask a question that undoubtedly reveals that inexperience and yet have so many experienced players offer helpful advice. I see that I will be concentrating on "orthodox" drop thumbing for a long time to come. Meanwhile, some questions similar to my own have been asked -- and responded to -- on a thread just a few away from this one. It's titled "Down picking and up picking in same tune" Not exactly the question I asked, but similar. And a similar batch of heavyweights have weighed in with responses.

Again -- I am grateful.

"Riley"

To R. D. in particular -- I'm a couple more weeks into drop-thumbing now and the rhythm is going smoother. It doesn't hurt that I've spent many years fingerpicking guitar, with an alternating thumb in the bass. To be sure, in that style the thumb is picking ON the beat rather than off it, as in banjo. There's always a little something to unlearn before I can learn the "banjo way," but I'm gettin' it, slowly but surely. Well, actually a little slower than that.

Thanks again to you all. Now to click on Mike Iverson's approach to 6/8, which is probably a technique I won't need for a while yet. Iverson's a good guy for me to check out, in any case, because I'm particularly interested in songs of the old west and he seems a western sort.

Riley