Pinkie Anchor Addiction

[Henry Jimdrix]

ah, i remember the show, but not the ladies in the pic.

they were friends of fonzie, they had a female thrill car show and did demo derbys...her sister though Leather Tuscadero

That bottom picture is a young Suzi Quatro

top one is a slightly older suzi quatro.

Yeah I did wonder if that was her as well, not a familiar look for Suzi.

[Mister Natural]

I'm not saying I am giving-up this "addiction" - simply asking who else might use their picking hand this way. My Berklee-trained teacher Steve didn't harsh on it at all. I'm well into middle age and unlikely to evolve further : = )
I get that I'm never gonna SHRED without that loose wrist(insert dirty-joke reference here fellas)
- with either the "legato" leads I tend to play & w/finger-style arpeggiation; I feel pretty comfortable with this hand control
peace

[resynthesis]

Never got it personally, and now (even in late middle age) hybrid picking on electric has been a bit of a revelation for me.

[vurt]

I'm not saying I am giving-up this "addiction" - simply asking who else might use their picking hand this way. My Berklee-trained teacher Steve didn't harsh on it at all. I'm well into middle age and unlikely to evolve further : = )
I get that I'm never gonna SHRED without that loose wrist(insert dirty-joke reference here fellas)
- with either the "legato" leads I tend to play & w/finger-style arpeggiation; I feel pretty comfortable with this hand control
peace

i like to think of it as a perversion rather than addiction.
then i feel all naughty when i do it

[mountainmaster]

Yep, guilty.
It works well for my fingerstyle. I never play with a pick. Mark Knopfler does it too, so we are in good company.

[Hermetech Mastering]

I started with pinkie anchor as my teacher said I should. After a couple of years I realised I really hated it, I'd build up a lot of unnecessary tension in the right hand, so started forcing myself to "float" instead. It was like taking a couple of steps back, took a while to get the accuracy back, took me over a year to fully break the habit, but I am VERY happy that I did. Feels much freer not to anchor, for me. But it's a very personal thing. Some of the best players in the word anchor, some of the best players in the world don't. Do what feels right.

[Vervil]

I just can't otherwise - either fingerstyle or w/pick
what does your right hand do ?
peace

You mean like floating/anchored hand difference? There was a moment 10-15 years ago when everyone was like "It is wrong to anchor" and people were switching to floating hand. I always played guitars with Floyd Rose or Strat style bridge and anchored hand was fine for that, but it wasn't working for me with Gibsons, for instance. So I learned to play floating hand, and today I may spontaneously switch from one to another. Hard rules how the guitar should be played are often doing more harm than good, and it is the same with floating hand thing. You can try it and if it works for you - great. But it is ok to play anchored, as Hermetech has said, a lot of amazing players play anchored. Just keep your playing hand relaxed and experiment. It is not as you have to choose. As I have already said I can now play both styles.

[Radical_Cleftist]

I'm well into middle age and unlikely to evolve further : = )

I'm in my early 40s, and I feel ya. I've been playing since I was 12, and I was a "pinkie anchor" player up until about four years ago when I decided to revisit how I approach the guitar from a technique perspective. I basically overhauled both my left- and right-hand technique: hand/wrist positions, picking style (I switched from thin picks to 1mm+ picks), improved note articulation, avoiding the pinkie anchor, etc. My point is that you can still learn "new tricks"!

[pekbro]

I do the pinky anchor thing occasionally I guess, but mostly I do the palm thing as I mute a lot.

[tapper mike]

I remember palm muting while hybrid picking for the longest time to control muting. Which is something you really need to master if you are playing high volume with lots of distortion to try and get a handle on unwanted feedback. When I stopped needing to have that type of control because I stopped playing those gigs it took awhile to get back to my regular fingerstyle and or flatpicking.

I think about getting back into straight flatpicking all the time. Think about it and then am to lazy to get up and look for picks. Most of my "classic rock" playing is flatpicking and a small portion of my jazz playing is flatpicking. My solo improvisation always opens up a bit more when I'm flatpicking/hybrid picking then when I'm fingerstyle/tapping.

[pekbro]

hmm, i don't really have any idea about tecnique, no doubt I have tons of bad habbits. I've never studied the guitar or taken any lessons or even read a book about it. I am able to do it because of my ears pretty much, its the same as any instrument for me. My intetrest in the guitar has been renewed somewhat, maybe ill learn some tecniques.

[tapper mike]

hmm, i don't really have any idea about tecnique, no doubt I have tons of bad habbits. I've never studied the guitar or taken any lessons or even read a book about it. I am able to do it because of my ears pretty much, its the same as any instrument for me. My intetrest in the guitar has been renewed somewhat, maybe ill learn some tecniques.

My guitar life has been a jack of all trades master of none. Early on I formed my playing style by whatever felt comfortable at the time. It's difficult unlearning bad habits. My fingerpicking approach was unnerving to teachers and I didn't like all adaption required to advance my playing technique. I never got down "monkey paw" flatpicking which is prevalent in gypsy jazz and funk.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xIyz7qiIzOk

Pay special attention to how he forces his wrist out and shakes it as he strums.
I spent about a month trying to master that then I threw in the towel.