Light Percussive Thud

Fingerstyle guitarists often like to make pops and thuds with their right-hand as a way to add percussion to a piece. Personally I like to keep my thuds subtle as I think it can be a bit intrusive otherwise. This article describes a particular technique that I use for adding a light thud in a back-beat rhythm. It is quite easy once you get it and doesn’t require any tricky fingernail flicking.

At the end of the article is a Flash video piece that shows the technique. The first part is from the final section of my tune "Any Day Now". It's a fairly simple DADGAD riff with the following tab:

The "X" notes are a little baffling unless you can see the trick in action. The basic idea is to use your right-hand middle finger to land on a string with a light thud. The fleshy part of the fingertip strikes the string with a downward motion. This sounds the thud marked as an X in the tablature. Now since your middle finger is already touching the string, you can sound the open string note by removing the finger. This is the note following the X in each bar. Then finally, you pluck the string below with the right-hand index finger.

The video below also tries to slow this down and show the basic idea. A more difficult example of this technique occurs in the DADGAD tune “Kettle of Fish”, where it is very rapidly played underneath bass notes in the riff. The tab goes like this:

At first it seems weird to execute the thud while picking a bass note, and like many things is actually easier at full speed. The best thing is to learn the part without the thud first and then add it in later.

The second half of the video shows this trick in action. Listen for the percussive thuds underneath main bass notes.

Enjoy !