The thumb-slap is one of the most popular, intuitive, and fun guitar techniques for beginners and advanced guitar players.

This technique allows you to add a percussive slap to a chord progression.

It’s called thumb-slap because we slap one of the bottom strings with the side of the thumb. The noise is produced by the string hitting the fret wires close to the body of the guitar.

Usually, the thumb-slap technique is performed on the E, A, and D string. Why? Because it is done with the thumb, which is the finger that usually plays the bass note of a chord. It is also done on the same string as the bass note of the chord.

If the chord you are playing has the bass on the low E string, you will perform the thumb-slap on the low E string. You will do the same with the chords that have the bass note on the A and D string.

In this video, we will put the thumb-slap into practice and use it over a beautiful chord progression in E major.

Enjoy the lesson.