muting poll - floating or not ?

I use my fretting hand to mute if I'm using an open tuning....but in standard tuning, I tend to use the edge of my strumming hand...that's the way I was shown, and I've stuck to it ever since...

Vic

I use both and everything in between.

Joe

I switch techniques, sometimes on the fly, and usually without thinking about it.

I started out anchoring my pinky finger like you, and a guitar player friend told me not to, it was hard at first to float the pick hand but my playing seemed smoother. Now I'm back to doing both, depends on the type of song. From what I've seen, it does'nt seem to matter, people seem to use both ways and play really well.

I do both, depending on the sound I need. Most of the time I float - resting my hand is a deliberate thing, either for muting, or so I can arch my picking hand a lot to demonstrate a particular pattern for a student. I keep my picking hand very close to the strings, either with a pick or fingerstyle, so it's sometimes hard to see what my right hand is doing.

When I need to arch to demonstrate, I anchor my pinky below the strings.

I once anchored but over time I more and more floated around. There is no special reason for this behaviour though... strange...

I used to anchor my pinky on the guitar and then use the side of my hand. But my guitar tutor jumped all over me about having my pinky on the guitar all the time is bad technique. He also got me to lower my elbow alot and play closer to the bridge. So now i basicly mute with the heal of my hand.

When I'm just strumming chords I'll float my hand, but the second I need precision (i.e playing single note lead lines) I'll gently rest my palm on the bridge. If I don't my picking gets extremely sloppy. This usually isn't a problem unless the song requires a lot of shifting between chord strumming and lead guitar licks (like most songs by Hendrix and SRV).