Pinkie Stabilization?

[mmmaak]

Pete has a very fluid right hand, and while he *may* use a light anchor on occasion, I have yet to observe it in any of the videos I've seen. Most of the time, his wrist floats somewhere above the bass strings or rests on them when palm-muting.

[ljguitar]

Originally Posted by Fingerstylist

Larry, does Huttlinger sometimes use a pinky anchor? In my Essential Exercises for Fingerstyle Guitar he recommends against it. Besides restricting your hand, he says it takes tone away from the top of the guitar. Knowing me, I probably misunderstood him

Hi FS...
Well, there are plenty examples of his pinky landing on the top of the guitar momentarily (like for a few seconds not milliseconds) on YouTube and in the 6 DVDs of his I own.

For the record, I differentiate between using the pinky as a placeholder and an ''anchor'' or ''plant''. Anchor to me indicates leaning on it and putting pressure on it...most of the people in my list (earlier in the thread) don't lean on it - though some really do. Plant is similar to anchor in my way of approaching it, and would indicate force and pressure.

Pete - by my definition - is not anchoring his pinky, and I've seen him live on 4 occasions, taken workshops with him, and he sat in with us at a coffee house gig for an hour one night (awesome night that changed my playing discipline from that point on).

I've studied his form pretty carefully from up close and afar, and he is the kind of player I hope to become - and given enough time and health, think I could become.

So if any contact with the top by a pinky - conscious or not - constitutes anchoring, then he anchors. If you make allowance for a lot of players who use the pinky as a guide or place-finder to get them back to ''home base'' (or keep them from wandering away from it) where the picking hand is situated over the strings properly, and they don't put weight on it...then he doesn't anchor or plant.

[Fingerstylist]

Thanks for the heads up Larry. I bet him sitting in with you guys was quite the experience. I keep meaning to go see one of his shows. So far the only acoustic guitarist I've seen live is Andy Mckee. He'll be hard to top, but I imagine if anyone can do it Pete can.

[ljguitar]

Originally Posted by Fingerstylist

Thanks for the heads up Larry. I bet him sitting in with you guys was quite the experience. I keep meaning to go see one of his shows. So far the only acoustic guitarist I've seen live is Andy Mckee. He'll be hard to top, but I imagine if anyone can do it Pete can.

Hi Fs...
I love guitarists who come in many flavors and have been equally impressed by Pete Huttlinger, David Wilcox, Phil Keaggy, Tommy Emmanuel, Michael Chapdelaine, Mimi Fox (at Healdsburg this year)...still on my ''to see live'' list are Anthony Wilson (plays with Diana Krall), Pat Donohue, John Carlini, Brian Setzer & Tuck Andress.

[rick-slo]

Fingers not currently in use can be used like a cat's whiskers letting you know where your hand and other fingers are. In any given situation it may be the pinky, the thumb or some other finger that lightly touches a string or guitar top to help orient and guide other fingers. I never touch the top (although I see nothing wrong with it for those people who do) but I often rest a finger on some unsounded string for guidance or to mute a note.

[lpa53]

I started this thread and was surprised tonight to see it still going. For a couple of reasons I've stopped the lessons I was taking but the few lessons I took did help me free myself from always anchoring (with pressure) the pinkie. I'm feeling much more comfortable with it now.

However, just now I was practicing a tune that's fairly fast and requires a hard attack at some points and found that for certain measures I have to do it just to get the sound load and precise enough. So I think there will still be times when I'll anchor it but like the fact that I now feel confident without it. It certainly is less strenuous.

[wcap]

I have not read this entire thread, so I hope I'm not repeating too much...


I was an avid, compulsive 5-string banjo player for something like 30 years before getting obsessed with guitar. And naturally, with that background, fingerstyle guitar is what comes natural to me.

5-string banjo players who do 3-finger picking with thumb and finger picks pretty much always use their little fingers for stability. It seems to really help a lot with picking precision, especially for really fast stuff.

But on guitar I basically never do this. I've played classical guitar a lot, and to get good tone on a classical guitar you really need good nails, and you need the right attack. And it really helps to have your hand position "correct" (I put that in quotes because I sometimes have found classical players to be rather rigid and stuffy about things, and I tend to rebel when people tell me there is a right and wrong way to play an instrument - but I think they ARE right when they talk about good hand position, and also about angling the guitar up - I find both of these things to make a huge difference).

Personally, I think not anchoring with my little finger not only puts my hand in a better position to get much better tone and volume (and I think this sort of position gives me better tone and volume even on a steel string guitar), but it also makes my right hand more free to move about as needed. I move around on banjo too, but on banjo, when using picks, I'm always picking. On guitar I have a bigger diversity of ways of hitting the strings. I not only pick upward (with fingers - downward with thumb of course) but I also strum with the backs of my nails (I'm sure classical players have some sort of name for this), and sometimes I will sort of flutter my index finger over a string or set of strings. There are all sorts of things I do with my right hand on guitar, and some of these would be inhibited by anchoring my hand with my little finger.

Another thing is that on banjo I'm only using my thumb and two fingers (index and middle), but on guitar I'm also using my ring finger, and it has gotten to be almost as important and dexterous as my middle finger. I have not tested this, but I have a strong suspicion that movement of my ring finger would be interfered with by anchoring (and immobilizing) my little finger.

And, I use nails on my right hand. I obsess over my nails. My daughter says I've turned into a girl. My nails are fundamentally important to my playing. They give me much better tone and volume. And I think maybe using nails as I do requires a different sort of hand position (?) that an anchored little finger would interfere with.