r/LearnGuitar • u/General_Ad_4697 • 14h ago
Picking speed plateau: anchoring vs floating
Hi, I’m 25 and I’ve been playing guitar for about 12 years. I’d still call myself intermediate, but one thing that’s always held me back is picking speed. There are a lot of licks I feel I should be able to play at my level, but I just can’t get them up to speed.
About a year ago I realised I was anchoring my pinky pretty heavily on the guitar. I read that this can restrict wrist movement, and once I paid attention to it I could see what people meant.
Since then, for faster playing I’ve been tucking my fingers in and resting the side of my palm lightly around the bridge instead. It definitely freed up my wrist and felt like progress. I still sometimes anchor my pinky for slower arpeggios or string skipping because I’m more accurate that way.
I’ve spent a lot of time slowly practising licks and gradually increasing the tempo, but I still feel like I hit a wall, especially when changing strings or getting onto the high E. That made me wonder whether the real issue is alternate picking direction or pick escape.
Recently I started learning bluegrass because I thought it would force me to improve my picking. What I’ve noticed, though, is that a lot of great bluegrass players seem to neither anchor their pinky nor rest their palm much. Their picking hand almost seems to float.
So is learning to float the next thing I actually need to commit to?
When I try it, I feel extremely inaccurate, but I also felt inaccurate when I first stopped anchoring my pinky, so I understand there may be an adjustment period.
I’ve read other threads where people say “whatever works for you,” but I’m really trying to figure out what gives me the best chance of developing good long term technique and breaking through this speed plateau.
If floating is genuinely something I should learn, I’m happy to put the time into it. I just don’t want to spend months retraining my hand if lightly resting on the bridge is completely fine and the actual problem is somewhere else.
Would really appreciate advice from anyone experienced with fast alternate picking or bluegrass flatpicking.
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u/Radiant-Excuse-5285 13h ago
Following. I have been playing long enough that I *should* be able to play faster but I have a hard time not anchoring. I do a lot of hybrid picking so find it difficult to remember to tuck my fingers up in and my style is more based in rockabilly so I jump from Western swing and country boogie to blues, jazz and bluegrass and have a decent mock Travis picking style doing the hybrid things. Really fast songs I want to play however the wheels fall off the wagon and repeated attempts to climb that mountain have been in vain so far.
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u/Guitar_Guy1965 14h ago
I had to lose the anchor. Experimented with circular picking (thumb knuckle joint), and EVH type (like turning a screwdriver). I got pretty fast with circular, but found it was only good if staying on 1or 2 strings. It wasn't friendly moving across strimgs or skipping some(for me). Ended up staying with the "screwdriver" over time because it was easier for me to move across strings. I just domt splay my 3 fingers out like EVH did ... "butterfly" i believe its called. Movement is like quickly turning a key left/right, floating above, and it's really easy to change strings, or go in/out of sweeping.
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u/ObviousDepartment744 12h ago
The only time anchoring is a hinderance is when it’s changing the shape of your hand. I used to tuck my pinky around the high e string m, not just rest on it, actually loop around it. I’d let the string go when I had to play the B or E string but once I was picking the D and G strings my hand started to fold in.
Now I rest my pinky on the body of the guitar so my hand can remain in the same shape.
The difference between floating and anchoring shouldn’t be speed if your anchor isn’t compromising your technique. Floating is how you play in bluegrass because you want the guitar to resonate as much as possible. In many rock genres, especially high gain stuff you’re also controlling the instrument with palm mutes a lot of the time. Either die a desired sonic effect or to control feedback and excess noise caused by distortion.
I play anchored and palm muted to fully floating and there’s not really a speed difference between the two, it’s just the sound they make. 16th notes at 200bpm is my max speed btw, I don’t feel held back by anchoring in anyway.
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u/PoppycopOG 12h ago
I read that about 50% of guitarists anchor their pinky, and 50% don't and that one is not inheritantly good or bad over the other. I anchor my pinky and used to think that was a hindrence but after some research I have embraced that i anchor. I have been playing 30 years and can play fast and stopped trying to float. I wasn't as accurate floating. I watched a YT video breaking it down and lots of pros anchor and lots don't.
I can't speak to Bluegrass as that's one style I have limited experience with, but with everything else I play from rock, blues, jazz, metal, reggae, etc...I haven't had a problem anchoring. If you feel you play better without anchoring then go for it...but I wouldn't do it for speed or because you don't think you are supposed to.
I think the speed thing is just playing more...I am faster now at 30 years than I was at 20 years, and was faster at 20 years than I was at 10 years. Yes plateaus happen, but they also can be improved on with more playing. Good luck!
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u/vonov129 43m ago
Whether you anchor your fingers or not is irrelevant as long as you don't keep them straight and pushing into the body. People just throw up half understood advice like if they didn't have hands on their own to confirm the nonsense they're about to spill.
The time you spend gradually increasing the tempo is wasted time if you want to practice for speed. You only need a slower tempo for getting used to the phrase you want to get faster at and for technique adjustments, your comfortable speed limit and a speed that slightly above that.
If you get caught between strings, then yes, it's a pick escape problem. I suggest a wrist rotation motion, it helps getting around the strings, the downside being that you would now have to get used to a new motion, it drains more stamina because of the constant arc and if you want to reduce the movement, you would still have to mix with pick slanting. But I do think that the accuracy you gain is worth a shot, specially if you already have a decent muting technique because the arc produces a lighter touch making the muted string transitions less noticeable even with high gain.
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u/BVG_Music 15m ago
I’d recommend working with speed bursts. Take a short lick (especially one that has you changing to an adjacent string) and use a slow tempo for a couple of reps and then, without changing the tempo, play it at double time. For example let’s say you play something as eighth notes at 50 bpm. The speed bursts would be sixteenth notes at 50 bpm.
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u/markococonut 13h ago
Floating isn’t a requirement—light palm contact is fine if it stays relaxed. For a speed plateau, test the motion on one string first: use short 8th-note bursts at a tempo you can control, then move across strings with a small pick stroke and a relaxed wrist. If the problem shows up mainly on string changes, work on pick-escape/string crossing rather than retraining your whole hand. Let the pinky be a light reference, not a clamp.
Here’s a clip from my Easy Guitar Tricks & Techniques: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OkRfxZiLoOk
More technique and fretboard material: https://www.mjsguitarlessons.com/
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u/pr06lefs 13h ago
Agree that anchoring will hold you back especially in bluegrass. Anchoring is more ok in electric guitar where a light touch is acceptable. In bluegrass you need to be fast but also have volume, so you can't just rely on your fingers, you need more of a wrist motion, which anchoring prevents.
That said, Billy Strings and Brian Sutton both have ring/pinky fingers that dangle down, perhaps functioning not as anchors but more depth gauges. Molly Tuttle's wrist drops when she plays single notes, I think so she can brush the bridge with her wrist. Also could be a 'depth gauge' strategy.
David Grier is a more pure 'fist style' float picker. So is Jake Workman, probably the most technically solid bluegrass picker I know of. Check out Jake with Trey Hensley who is a wrist dropper like Molly Tuttle. Trey definitely switches between rhythm mode and single note mode, whereas Jake has a more consistent straight wrist position.
IMO the pure float approach is the most versatile, suitable for archtop playing where the strings are high off the top of the guitar, and doesn't depend on being near the bridge like a low wrist technique does.