Planting a Finger While Using a Pick

[Litterick]

A very established and well-worked out "classical" technique is the gypsy jazz picking method which is based on rest-strokes. There, anchoring is a big no-no.

I’ll get my coat.

[whiskey02]

You get get the benefit of planting.....without even planting. There's a reason a pick guard is often called a finger rest. Hold your pick between thumb and index and let your other fingers, perhaps guided by the longest/middle just barely touch and glide across the finger rest as you play. You're not attached/planted,so you can move and not have to stretch your fingers, and you hand will maintain the same shape always, whether playing on high or low string. It gives you a "constantly movable " anchor.

[P.J.]

When I do plant, and usually I do not because I tend to hybrid pick a lot, I find that I anchor my rh ring finger instead of rh pinky. I am not sure why I do this, just feels better than anchoring my pinky.

[christianm77]

I am switching from fingerstyle to learning how to play with a pick. Not surprisingly it is much easier to pick accurately if I plant my pinky somewhere on the body of the guitar. Is this a huge no-no like it is with classical guitar? I don't want to develop a really bad habit here if this is going to cause me problems later. Thoughts?

Depends.

- I rest my hand or fingers, I don’t plant or anchor them, for instance.
- other players are pure floating.
- others anchor their hands at the wrist.

You can find examples of all of these and more.... there isn’t a really effective standardised pedagogy. Gypsy and Benson picking are effective approaches for certain types of players, but not all. There are always compromises...

As a Gypsy/quasi Benson picker, my right hand muting is basically non existent, for instance, but that might be unacceptable for other players. Also Benson grip makes it harder to hybrid pick, and so on.