Soukous and hand techniques

[aalam]

From what I have just seen on youtube, it seems that in this kind of music:

1) bass player uses thumb (fret hand) to press E string (and maybe A string too?)
2) he/she also uses thumb of picking hand

I have only played bass for nearly a year, but this is very different from what I am used to and caught my interest. So I wonder:

Is there any inherent advantage on pressing E string with the thumb (at least in this kind of music) or is it just a convention? And same question for the other technique, is there any advantage or does it give it a different tone picking with thumb and index fingers?

or in other words, why do they do that?

[icastle]

Hooking a thumb over the top of the neck I'd class as dubious technique and\or laziness - there are certainly no tangible advantages to doing it that I can think of.

I've seen a number of bassists using their thumb to pick the strings and, although I'd be the first to admit it's totally subjective, to my ears it always sounds really horrid.

[aalam]

I have tried it, ended up picking the string with the corner of thumb nail. It was interesting.

Hooking a thumb over the top of the neck is uncomfortable.

[Doddy]

No problems at all with using your thumb to pluck the strings.Ever wondered why the inger rest is under the strings on the
original Precision Basses?
Fretting with the thumb is a bad idea though.It shifts your hand in to an uncomfortable position and really restricts
your hand movement. I've seen it use in certain situations but it's not a good idea to do it consistently.

[EliasMooseblaster]

Hooking your thumb over the top of the neck makes more sense if you're a guitarist and have an unusual chord to get your hand round. E.g., try to play [i]Pinball Wizard[/i] using Pete Townshend's original chord shapes and you'll quickly resort to using your thumb!

I'm sure there are occasions where I do the same on the bass (can't think when, just now) but it's not a technique I'd use regularly. Bear in mind it will limit your movement between different neck positions!

[Coilte]

This guy has being doing this for forty plus years. Seems to work for him.

[url="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=obFcsEtFIKA"]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=obFcsEtFIKA[/url]

[chris_b]

The rules are there to be adapted. Lazy playing usually doesn't work, but if you can make something easier to play or sound better then keep it in.

The "rule book" works for most players but every so often someone comes along like Larry Graham, James Jamerson and Jaco Pastorius. Those guys ripped it up and started again.

[KevB]

Hendrix was a bit of a thumb hooker too, don't know if he did it when playing bass though. Massive hands.

[Doddy]

[quote name='chris_b' timestamp='1406719861' post='2514025']
The "rule book" works for most players but every so often someone comes along like Larry Graham, James Jamerson and Jaco Pastorius. Those guys ripped it up and started again.
[/quote]

Jaco and Jamerson new the 'rules' first though.

[chris_b]

Of course, but my point was about where they ended up not where they started.

All 3 took bass playing so far beyond the norms of the techniques of the day that they virtually started their own rule books.

[Doddy]

Yeah they did but like you say, that's where they ended up. As the OP has only been playing for under a year I think it
would be more beneficial to encourage them to focus on a better technique at this point.

[SteveK]

I'm a big Macca fan, but the technique demonstrated by him in Coilte's YT clip is horrendous.