I took lessons for a couple of years and my teacher had me keep my right thumb on the pickup regardless of the string I was playing. Is it worth the time and effort to unlearn this and move my thumb to different strings per Josh’s lesson? I’m 78 and don’t expect to be gigging.
Lawboy
There’s no one and done correct thumb placement. We’re all different sizes and shapes with different physical limitations that will affect how we play. If you’re not having issues with muting strings and keeping your thumb on the pickup is comfortable for your hand then it’s correct for you. I do see a lot of value in trying out different approaches (to thumb placement and life in general) just since you never know if one of them is going to work better!
FWIW I do a float thumb technique instead of having my thumb resting on anything because it’s easier on my joints.
I second that! 
What works for you is the right way for you.
I second this too! 
I do that too, depending on what I’m playing. If it’s fast chugging, then I try to keep my thumb as relaxed as possible. (I have some problems with hypermobility, and once I hurt my thumb while playing Billy Idol. I was too concentrated on the notes and speed, and I didn’t notice how tense my hand was, and I put a lot of weight and tension on my thumb’s joint. It was hurting for weeks after that.) Now one of focuses is to keep the plucking hand relaxed and avoid putting weight on my thumb.
There’s no need for floating thumb. The technique exists only to serve as muting aid. If your left hand is doing all if not most of the muting and your right hand is already doing the muting in between notes then it’s all good.
While I 100% agree about the left had muting, I respectfully disagree about the purpose of the float thumb technique only for muting. I use it because like @andrea-slndr I have hypermobility. Using any of the variations on the standard thumb placement (either planted on the pickup or moving) causes a lot of pain, neuropathy, and will cause my hand to lock up entirely. Honestly I only found out about the float thumb technique from the perspective of joint issues rather than from muting. It was an absolute game changer for my ability to play.
EDIT: I realize there might be some confusion since this conversation is text based. When I refer to “float thumb” that is playing where the pad of the thumb doesn’t rest on anything, and instead the top of the digit (thumbnail side) rests gently on the body and slides around as needed.
Yes, people are different. Also there are different degrees of hypermobility, and many people have much more hypermobility than I have. For many hypermobile people putting weight on joints can cause them to bend more than the normal, and they might hurt for a while after that.
Some people wear braces or different things to support the joints (to prevent them for exceeding the normal angle of motion), and there are also some rings designed to prevent finger joints from bending backwards, but I think they would scratch the bass.
The most important thing is to be aware of the problem and to come up with solutions, and the floating thumb is one of the things that can help. Another thing is resting the thumb, but being extra aware of not putting weight on it. But depending on what one is playing, it is difficult to pay attention on the fretting hand, the string jumping, the speed, muting, plucking - and having the thumb as an extra thing to worry about.
It might be worth mentioning that if you want to puck different positions for tone it might be helpful to get used to playing without a pickup to rest on. Thumb plucking is also a situational thing you might want to do.
Regardless of the muting discussion, I’d saying learning to play without your thumb glued to the pickup is a good thing.
Wholly agree with both your posts! I think it’s really helpful to have these conversations because it can be really hard to parse out if your technique could use work or if it’s just not the right style for your body. With bass or with anything!
I agree 100%. Especially when most of the time each of us practices alone at home.
I think it would be very good to me to develop a relaxed and easy plucking. Like the one in this video. I admire how lightly he rests his thumb on the pickup and on the string. It is a very light touch:
Unfortunately when I’m concentrated on learning something new or plucking faster, I forget about this and I might put too much weight on the thumb. But my goal is to develop this kind of light touch.
Same here. It’s not the easiest thing to learn. I’m practicing floating thumb and light plucking on the right hand & MVP and not-ramming-thumb-into-neck on the left hand. All together, it’s a tough piece of work. But I think that I have made some progress. Far away from being perfect, but it got better. 
Yes, it is harder than I had imagined. I learned not to press the left thumb into the neck, but then when I started to pay more attention on the right hand, then I started pressing with the left! 
MVP is always good to keep in mind too. I think sometimes I also pluck harder than the necessary. I’ll start doing some warm-up and dexterity exercises, so then I can use the opportunity to pay attention to all these details. When I’m playing a song, the attention goes to the notes, note length and speed, and I might get tense on my hands without noticing. But during exercises there will be less distractions.
I am 72 with a surgically repaired arthritis infused fretting hand. Playing bass for almost two years (gave up guitar due to messy hands). Jim Stinnett (rip) looked like he often just kept his thumb on the E string. So, I try to follow Josh’s great technique advice but also freestyle to groove a bit. Whatever’s works.
I used to play guitar finger style (sometimes with my pinky braced below the strings) so it took me a while to develop this braced thumb style of playing but I now mostly don’t think about it; my thumb moves between pickup/ramp, E and A. However, sometimes, if there are fast string crosses to do, I find it easier to stay on the pickup/ramp and just reach for the higher strings.
When I play (or try to play) bits of classical I tend to drop into something much closer to my old guitar finger style as I frequently have to play two or more strings together and often with my thumb picking the E or A.
I don’t see how you’re managing to mute the strings, unless you use the fourth and fifth fingers like Jaco did. Since you’re not gigging, if the lower strings resonating is not bothering you, no need to make your body learn something new. I get bothered by the sound of resonance, but moving the thumb around is definitely another thing to learn and train your body to do automatically, it’s taking me time.
Yeah using your thumb for muting is very convenient, but you can also do right hand muting with the palm/lower part of the right hand which I believe becomes more important with 5 or 6 string basses.
And of course you can do muting with your fretting hand too, which I do quite a lot.