PICKING HAND:Floating hand or fingers anchored on the body??

[jalguitarman]

Which do like or think is better technique??

[Dirty Steve]

I tend to use the lower heel of my right hand on the back edge of the bridge as an anchor. I used to do the little finger anchor, but found it constricting.

[jrich99]

I once heard somewhere to avoid anchoring your hand, but I anchor the lower heal of my right hand as well.

[Kingpin]

I think floating is the preferred technique, it leads to less tension in your picking hand. That said, there have been some fantastic players that plant a pinky on the body.

You can achieve a similar point of reference as anchoring provides by just letting the heel of your picking hand graze the bridge/strings. Helps with muting too.

[Uma Floresta]

Palm anchor

[rangercaster]

a combination of both styles is what i use ... i pull my pinky off the body if i need to use it ...

[JayFreddy]

Originally Posted by Kingpin

I think floating is the preferred technique, it leads to less tension in your picking hand. That said, there have been some fantastic players that plant a pinky on the body.

+1. Pinky "posting", as it's called in Bluegrass parlance, pulls your hand out of balance and causes tension to build up. However, as Kingpin noted, there are lots of great players who post the pinky.

The fastest, most fluid pickers I've known have all been floaters. When you hear fast, fluid, flowing lines, that's pretty much a guarantee of floating.

What do Joe Maphis, Tal Farlow, Geroge Benson, Al Dimeola, Yngwie Malmsteen, Eric Johnson, and Alex Hutchings have in common?

They're all floaters.

[jefrs]

Floating.

Planting the pinky is for bluegrass banjo players, it restricts movement of the picking point along the strings to one place. I cannot even do that on the banjo, I find that having one finger permanently extended restricts the fluidity of wiggle movement of the rest of the fingers. Plus on an acoustic guitar it dampens the vibration of the soundboard, this also true for banjo. And those funny metal claws get caught in the strings.

Floating follows the classical technique, jazz players use it too even with a pick. This may be parallel development since the 'classical technique' is historically quite new (mainly Segovia, but check Freddy Green's technique and Django's). The forearm should not be clamped to the body of the guitar either but move freely from the shoulder.

Initially planting a finger or the heel of the palm lends accuracy but resting the thumb (or a finger) on a non-vibrating string to damp it serves the same purpose. It takes some practice, eventually the hand, which is after-all constantly playing the strings, knows where the strings are, and it becomes easier than nailing the hand to the plank.

[Pauljazzguitar]

I've been planting the pinky on the guitar whenever I play for 30 something years . Never had a problem with it.
I have however in the past few years been hybrid picking more and more and I have a floating hand for this.

Paul

[JayFreddy]

Originally Posted by Pauljazzguitar

I've been planting the pinky on the guitar whenever I play for 30 something years . Never had a problem with it.
I have however in the past few years been hybrid picking more and more and I have a floating hand for this.

Paul

Hi Paul, do you have any samples of your playing? I did a search on Youtube to try and find "fast and fluid" players who posted their pinky, but I couldn't come up with anything. The closest I found was Merle Travis' doing his Kentucky Thumbstyle thing, but that's not strictly flat picking...

I'm sure there are some "fast and fluid" players who post the pinky, but I can't think of any... The ones who float are much more common.

Jimmy Page has a habit of posting his pinky intermittantly, it's not a consistent thing, but it's a safe bet that it contributes to his legendary sloppiness.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kXNqJx9H75s

[brokenjoe]

I play with the outside of my palm ever so lightly on the bridge -actually it's more closer to the back of the bridge, with my fingers up most of the time. For certain things, I'll drop my pinky where it ever so lightly brushes against the body to use as a depth gauge.

I'm not sure if I buy into this whole 'right way, wrong way' thing. Jeff Beck rests the side of his fingers on the top of the guitar a lot. Mind you, he doesn't use a pick, and usualy has the trem bar in his hand.

Jim Campilongo puts his pinky down occasionally, as do lots of guitarists. I think I'd find it limiting if I had my fingers anchored all the time though.

I also play Bluegrass banjo. I've seen heated arguments over whether it's necessary to have one, or two fingers fingers planted!

[emu!]

This question has come up a few times since I joined here. From my perspective, I used to be a pinky anchor person. All the world was in sync.

THEN, I decided to learn chickin' pickin'...which uses the picking fingers along with the plectrum. MY WHOLE WORLD WAS SCREWED UP! I had to re-learn my picking technique...using the palm heel plant...losing the pinky anchor.

THEN, I decided to purchase a Les Paul. IT iS ALMOST IMPOSSIBLE TO PALM HEEL PLANT ON A LP! Back to pinky anchor.

So, I've come to the conclusion that, depending on what type of guitar and what type of picking technique used, a person should be able to do both.

[Joe-Bob]

Don't "anchor" your hand at all. Go ahead and learn to be accurate now, and get it over with. You can't strum with your hand anchored, why would you play other stuff that way?

[jazztele]

i gotta float--i use those fingers!

i tried pinky anchoring once...i would imagine somebody could injure themselves doing it. I'm with joebob, a little good technique goes a long way.

[awfulguitarnois]

I've only been playing about a year and a half, and the first year I struggled mightily with my picking hand (I really only flat-pick, though). I kept hitting the wrong string. Funny thing was, I was pinky posting. I decided to completely stop anchoring and as others have said, my picking is much more fluid and ironically, more accurate. But that's just me.

[mr.jef]

I don't really have a consistent strategy (i think), but from what i did in the last five minutes, i think i mix floating, resting the base of my hand on the saddles and sometimes planting a thumb. Normally i pluck basslines with my thumb though, which seems to offer enough (though moving) support

[Gareth John]

My Dad used to plant his pinky on the guitars body but I never did. It wasn't a consious thing I just learned to play that way naturally. It seems an effort for me to plant the pinky and makes it more difficult.

[emu!]

Originally Posted by Joe-Bob

Don't "anchor" your hand at all. Go ahead and learn to be accurate now, and get it over with. You can't strum with your hand anchored, why would you play other stuff that way?

I guess that would work if you keep your body perfectly still...but when your on stage and in "the moment", it's pretty difficult to stand that still while picking individual notes.

[redstringuitar]

Some very useful info here, I have to admit to being a pinky and heel planter at times...but I hate the constriction and tension build-up, so I'm going to make a conscientious effort to get accurate and stop that nonsense from now on.

That said, I understand that in flamenco picking, the thumb should be rested on the E string while it isn't being played.

[fezz parka]

Both. Palm muting can be very important.