I'd like to be able to not anchor at all. I remember reading that Bryan Sutton sometime pronated or "bowed out" his wrist a little which increased his volume and some would say enhanced his tone. speaking of You Tube check out the Gypsy Jazz players.....they can really fly and no part of their hand touches the guitar!

Howard

Howard, talk about a loose wrist without tension. How'd you like to be playing Gypsy Jazz for, oh, say two or three hours or so in an evening

But it's like Tom mentioned in his last reply. If all you do is have the pinky brushing the pickguard, it doesn't limit your mobility, it just gives you a guide to pick depth and a hint of support. At least for Bluegrass, looks to me that the vast majority of players (lead) do this, so it appears to have stood the test of time.

gypsy jazz. two hours? Two minutes, tops. Check Django playing "shine", less than 3 minutes, 1936, playing unapproachably fast and impeccably clean and swinging like mad the whole time. with two fingers and a thumb on his fretting hand. any time I think I'm pretty good, I listen to that. puts me in my place right proper, it does. The rest of us mortals just plug along. tom

When I started playing bluegrass I had already been playing guitar for years, mostly electric and mostly in the hybrid picking-style (flatpick and fingers). I rested my palm on the bridge pins. I could play pretty fast this way but my volume, tone, and fluidity seemed to suffer. I then bought the Bryan Sutton DVD and tried to incorporate some of his picking technique. My volume, tone, and fluidity got much better, and I'm back up to about 95% of the speed I had with the palm anchor.

A while back someone posted a clip of Curtis Jones on youtube playing Sweet Georgia Brown. Check out that picking technique! Most of the Gypsy jazz guys and Bryan Sutton are using a lot of rest strokes in their picking. I understand the concept but I can't really apply it at anything but the slowest speed.

Hey, this is really workin! Now that I've gotten the palm off the pins, my picking hand is moving more freely as I go string to string. Also, it allows me to loosen up my right wrist so my picking seems more fluid. You put on top of those improvements the improvement in tone and volume (which was the initial motivation for the change), and this is one fine tweak, and it didn't cost a thing

FWIW, in addition to lightly brushing the pickguard with my pinky, I'm also finding from time to time that the pinky is holding onto the high E. Doesn't seem to present any problem, since when I then move to play on the high E the pinky seems to jump right off quickly and naturally goes back to brushing the pickguard.

And Sonoman, have no fear about this momentary technical focus taking away from playing spontaneously. What I found was that after thinking about the technique change for all of 5 minutes, I was able to "forget" about it and simply play, yet the technique change stayed in place. Thanks again for all the comments folks.

Tom, it's the same as what my creative writing professor told me 43 years ago: you learn the rules so you can forget them. some geniuses can just play; the rest of us have to figure it out and practice, although practice sounds labored, and it doesn't feel that way at all. Focused play, maybe. Off to play the Alien along to Band in A Box. The jazz one, then maybe the country one. Oh, and it's too damned hot here today, worse predicted for tomorrow, and the hills are obscured by smoke. the guitar's clear enough, though, so party on, Wayne. tom

I anchor my pinky (I finger pick rather than flat pick). When I first started, my pinky got sore and tired and it felt like an anchor.
Now, I don't even realize that I am doing it. It is not inflexible, tired, etc.

I use my pinky like a paint brush when I flatpick and lift it back into my palm when I start strumming.
I didn't know I did this until I read this post. It's kinda funny to watch as I begin to strum the pinky retracts like the landing gear on an airplane.

Thanks for the Clarence White link.

On Soldier's Joy, that's Byron Berline on fiddle and the great Alan Munde (very young) on banjo. At first,wasn't sure it was Mr. Munde, since there was not much camera time or focus on his face, but when he launched into the second part of the tune, there was no doubt whose hands were behind those banjo strings, even though his styling was at a very early stage.

Mr. Munde, Mr. Berline, and Mr. Roland White were the core of the group Country Gazette, which I think was formed after the date of the youtube tape.

Clarence White, Roland White, Alan Munde, and Byron Berline -- a hall of fame videotape.

Alex

Before completely letting this one go, and again straying a little off topic, the other thing I noticed was Clarence's right arm is more or less motionless. For me this was interesting, since my electric lead mechanics was always dominated by wrist, but the flatpicking instruction I've gotten has been really insistent on maintaining a motionless wrist, and letting your elbow do all the work. I can understand the point, but it was interesting to see Clarence tear it up like that using the other approach.

Thanks again to Sonoman for the reference ... that Soldier's Joy is a hoss!

Take a look at these two great pickers: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z5VayE24CFI

Excellent technique. Also look at the location of the right forearm/elbow, as well as the angle of the guitar.

Look at this for more http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SMREtffhP9w&feature=related

All of these guys, to the extent that their arm length allows, will come from far back on the guitar. Grier has a shorter arm, so he comes down to the strings with more angle on his arm, which seems to make him a little more "wristy". But notice that his pick, like the other guys, is always parallel and perpendicular to the strings.

Here's a more wristy technique: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TMyHoEbELzI

Here's the most extreme anchoring I've ever seen: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0_1hWFyKz80&feature=related

On a side-note - this guy has a nice instructional site: http://www.youtube.com/user/ludwigtrap

Rolfomatic, thanks for posting all those links in one place, and for all your comments.

BTW, I've got the Rice, Grier & Smith DVD, and it always blows me away. Their version of Bill Cheathum is like a PhD course in flatpicking. Course, I could say the same about the video of Tony and Wyatt playing Manzanita. Thanks again for posting these, particularly for those who haven't yet found them.

PS: And I've said it before, and will say it again (think it originally came from Bryan Sutton), Grier is not of this Earth!