retraining the anchor finger

[slide496]

I've been trying to train my anchored pinky on the picking hand to float around more by taping the pinky loosely with surgical tape to the palm. Has anyone ever done similar?

[twang1]

When playin' we already make fingers do some unusual movements. I don't think you should put even more stress on our poor hands. Don't overstress the tendons. Try to stay as relaxed as possible. Sometimes I ancor firmly my pinky for some strong sounding passages but mostly the pinky is relaxed and moves on the guitar body. Hope it helps.
Frank

[mitchfit]

i mostly anchor/rest hand on outside edge of palm.

a downside to this, call me mr. bridge corrosion.
also reso bridge cover, unless well cleaned each
time used.

the only time i move away is when i want to turn
down the "treble". as such the pinky is only a
"part time" employee.

wish fender still offered the QD/snap-on bridge
cover my '60's jaguar had on it.

sounds very uncomfortable, kinda vote with twang1.

mitchfit

[Stevie]

Harriet, unless you are going to actually use your "pinky", I don't see as it makes much difference.
My classical teacher tried to knock it out of me with little success in the early 1970s. 35 years later, best beloved bought me 3 classical lessons with a local professor of music that taught guitar at a local (posh) school. He didn't pick me up on it.
I wonder does it affect your tone in any way? If not, although it's not the best advice, I"d go with the method that made me feel most comfortable or confident if I was you (which I'm not of course!)
Steve.

[slide496]

It's not very uncomfortable, its like making a claw hammer type playing hand and taping the pinky in that position to train the pinky to move around - I only do it for maybe 20 minutes at a time per day and not every day. It sounds daft, I'm sure. Coming from alternate bass playing to slide , I would like more control over the angle of attack in the treble for bite, and more variety in loudness, softness of the bass, and to add strums. Will keep proceeding with caution as while it might not hurt, its an adjustment.

[zak71]

I would really advise against forcing your finger(s) into an unnatural position, you would be amazed at how easy it is to give yourself tendinitis or other condition (when I started playing slide I screwed up my left arm so badly that I had to go to a sports trauma expert to get rid of the burning pain that extended from my wrist to my elbow).

The whole "don't anchor your fingers on the guitar top" thing comes from classical guitar playing, many of our blues role models rested one (or even two) fingers on the guitar top when they played - lots of footage of the greats will confirm this. 

However, if you see anchoring your pinky on the guitar as a rut that you wish to break out of, I would recommend trying some picking patterns that require more up-and-down motion with your hand, or Patton-style frailing, or anything else that simply makes anchoring impossible.
Please, please don't tape anything to anything while practicing, it really doesn't take much to give yourself a painful and long-lasting hand injury!

[Deleted]

Hi Harriet.
The only time I do anythng like that is taping my thumb close to my hand when drumming - that's the result of years of slapping the bass. It sort of dislocates after a while and I have to literally snap it back into place - painless but annoying.
I agree with the above, its unnatural! Anchoring the pinky is GOOD - depending on the tune.
TT

[slide496]

Taping is out by unanimous forum vote then!!! Thanks guys for the help

Dec 16, 2013 21:06:48 GMT zak71 said:

However, if you see anchoring your pinky on the guitar as a rut that you wish to break out of, I would recommend trying some picking patterns that require more up-and-down motion with your hand, or Patton-style frailing, or anything else that simply makes anchoring impossible.

Thanks Zak, for the alternative, I'll check that out - didn't think of it.

[blueshome]

I don't know how much damping you do with your right hand playing slide (or finger style) but it is a technique that is really useful for controlling your sound. If you practice this it will mean taking your pinky up.

Stefan G and other teachers have a lot to answer for. Playing this music there is no right or wrong way to do anything, it's the sound you produce that matters. Maybe the best thing for you to do is to stop thinking and just get playing and things will fall into place. Your playing is already very good on the evidence we've seen - relax, close your mind and fly away with the sound.

[slide496]

Thanks Blueshome for your kind words,and for the reminder to be myself and to develop that as well. I damp with both hands, almost always behind the slide (total ghost sound otherwise) and flexible with the right.

Its more self study to get out of a rut as Zak mentioned and expand the vocabulary that I started the abruptly ended "tape experiment." My right hand is pretty much self developed after about 4 lessons in the late 1960's and listening to piedmont players like John Hurt and my classmate at university would show me stuff, no tab or anything.

I didn't start using any dvd instruction seriously until 2009-10 for the bottleneck and I enjoy the illusion of company it affords as well as seeing how the instructor goes about playing. Each one is different.

[simonf]

Im with Blueshome here... I started out with a bit of anchoring- partly as a result of classical lessons where we were encouraged to do that to an extent. I cant anchor and damp with the edge of the palm at the same time- and I usually want at least some control over the bass strings with damping- so it pretty much stopped automatically by doing that.

Playing slide stuff, I also took a lot from lessons by Scott Ainslie some years ago, when he talked a lot about shutting down the strings you dont want. Again, I cant anchor whilst dropping fingers on strings I dont want ringing in sympathy to what Im playing.The anchoring is long gone- without ever having made a conscious effort about it. To an extent I probably anchor with the damping palm now instead- but thats another issue!

[Deleted]

It's horses for courses. I'll anchor depending on the song, and only for the bits I have to.
I anchor during most of this tune, but not all of it, and I play lots of songs where I don't. I'm not even aware Im doing it to be honest, it just happens.
TT

[Quarterquay]

Interesting. I've just realized that I've no idea without going to pick up the guitar how I position my hand or my little finger on my picking hand.
I do know that I was once heading down the road you mention Zak with your left hand. I was lucky that I caught on to what was going on early. I did two things,I stopped playing for a few days and I bought two neoprene wrist and thumb braces a heavy duty one which I wore at night while asleep and a lighter one for during the day that I could still work in.

After that once my wrist and thumb had settled I made damned sure I corrected my slide playing hand position! I haven't had a problem since fortunately.

[Quarterquay]

I finally remembered to check and it seems I don't do any little finger anchoring, like you SimonF it seems my bass string damping prevents me from doing any anchoring.I tried anchoring just to see and I found it nigh on impossible to get any control on any of the strings never mind the bass strings!