Hi everyone Millwallal here, first time intro after reading a lot about your various experiences. I’m from South London England, and I’ve been playing or trying to play guitar since the beginning of lockdown, I’m about to start the second beginner course. Here’s my question, I love finger style and no matter how hard I try my anchored pinky always hurts after a couple of verses. I’ve tried not using one but I find that impossible. Any thoughts
It shouldn’t hurt. An anchored pinky should be a light touch, just to orient where you are on the guitar. I think of it like a cat’s whiskers, just gently placed to help my brain figure out where the rest of the fingers are. It should be relaxed, too.
The weight of your arm should be against the body of the guitar through your upper forearm as well, not the pinky.
Perhaps post a video.
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Welcome Al !
Using a pinky anchor is not for everyone but it should not hurt. Justin plays fingerstyle without using the anchor as his pinky is short. @Richard_close2u in his recent Vintage Club on finger style revealed he uses the bridge to rest his hand and uses that as an anchor. Depending what I am playing I switch between “floating” like Justin, normally folk fingerstyle songs or the “bridge” anchor when playing acoustic blues pieces, as the bass note is pretty much always muted. I should add I just never got on with a pinky anchor and naturally started “floating”.
So experiment and see what works for you.
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Absolutely. The pinky is used just as a guide. You should be able to move your hand freely with the pinky sliding along. It should not be firmly placed.
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It’s early days for me in fingerstyle but I’m going with having the heel of my hand resting on the top bridge pins as my anchor. Not all hands are created equal, we each have slightly different proportions and varying degrees of mobility. Try the suggestions others have made but if you can’t get comfortable then there are alternatives
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Similar to Toby I play now without any anchoring. I started with pinky but it felt too, well, anchored. Try different techniques, eventually something will agree with you.
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Thanks for your reply. It starts off light but as I move through the song the weight increases, or if I move to a 6/8 tempo it becomes really uncomfortable. I think your probably right about not resting any part on the guitar [quote=“Millwallal, post:1, topic:292049, full:true”]
Hi everyone Millwallal here, first time intro after reading a lot about your various experiences. I’m from South London England, and I’ve been playing or trying to play guitar since the beginning of lockdown, I’m about to start the second beginner course. Here’s my question, I love finger style and no matter how hard I try my anchored pinky always hurts after a couple of verses. I’ve tried not using one but I find that impossible. Any thoughts
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Thanks everyone I’ll try your suggestions and will let you know how it goes.
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Welcome to the community!
I thought hard on the anchor finger as well. My goals being primarily classical and finger style.
In classical guitar, which really is an application of finger style playing, there is no anchor finger. It is too restricting for the style of play.
If classical can be played without an anchor, so can steel finger style. So I just don’t anchor.
I think it adds a layer of complexity to learn and become accustomed to. It is harder to maintain accurate hand position and sort out where your fingers are at times. But I think the advantages are worth it.
Admittedly, I am still working on classical finger style, but paused much with steel finger style until I sort out rhythm better. Finger style is hard, good to dabble in early, but still needs a good foundation in rhythm which I feel is built from learning to strum and play songs with different rhythms, to a metronome, drum or backing track.
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Thanks, I have much to learn. lol
Don’t we all…
Hi @Millwallal
Like JK mentioned, the anchor should be a soft touch, not your support. And like Toby mentioned, I have naturally moved to using my palm on the corner of the bridge. I can scoot forward or backward from there as needed for muting and maintain some knowledge of where my hand is without needing to look.
One thing you need to learn to do is pay attention to things like increasing the pressure on your pinky. There are a lot of places where we need to maintain consistency with body position and minimize tension, and this is a great time to get in the habit of frequently surveying your posture and tension all over to see if it is correct - especially while playing! It will save you from annoying pains as you progress.
I have tried anchoring my pinky but I think it must be too short and it doesn’t feel right. So, I am practicing without the pinky anchor.
Tommy Emmanuel anchors, as did Chet Atkins. Tommy talks about it at about 1:20 in this video.
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I’ve had a number of other guitar players, who seeing my fingerstyle without an anchor pinky told me in no uncertain terms that I NEED to anchor. I tried and it just never worked.
About 5 years ago I attended a master guitar workshop led by a well known fingerstyle guitarist in this area of the world. I had a 15 minute one on one session with him and was curious as to his position as earlier in that day I’d seen him anchor with his pinky.
He said he didn’t use a pinky anchor any more. It was funny because I said something like but I was paying attention and noticed you did on song such and such.
He said he didn’t do it consciously and not to worry about it either way.
My take on it is if I can using muscle memory train my fingers where the strings are without an anchor, that’s gotta be better than forcing myself to use an anchor. The reality for me was an anchor just never worked and I gave up on it every time I tried it.
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Agreed. Like I said, nearly the full body of classical guitarists play complex finger style without an anchor. So I see its point, but not its necessity.
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