Palm Keeps Pressing Down on Tremolo Bridge

I think the better approach in the long term is to get your hand off the bridge in the first place and yes you will have to consciously think about it and watch yourself for awhile until it becomes ingrained in you not to do it.

Blocking the bridge is not a workable solution if you actually wanted to use your whammy bar.

Besides the obvious answer of don't push down on the darn bridge (a la Steve Jobs "don't hold it that way"), is it possible to lock down a bridge when you're not using a tremolo arm so that you don't accidentally press on it?

Simply remove the arm. I am sure Steve Jobs will recommend that too... :P

Except removing the arm isn't going to do anything if you are resting your hand on the bridge, it's still floating and you will run into the same problem.

If you need the support that resting your palm gives you, you can try just resting your pinky on the body of the guitar instead.

Slash, for example, does this.

Thanks, all for the comments. Sounds like just bad form that needs breaking before it becomes a habit. Not a problem when strumming, obviously, but for picking and power chords it's very awkward not to have my hand braced against something. I'll try the Slash approach of anchoring my pinkie and ring finger and see if I can get comfortable with it.

Don't anchor your hand, keep it floating. It may help you to start off by wrapping your little and ring fingers around the trem arm. Use your forearm to support your picking hand - it's what you do when you're fingerpicking, anyway.

If you need to damp the strings, lower the picking hand onto the bridge, but don't change the support from your forearm.

I think one of the things that's hard about first using an electric is that there's no support the way there is with an acoustic. On an acoustic when sitting, your upper arm rests on top of the guitar and your strumming hand naturally falls in front of the strings. On an electric the position is different. Your arm is not resting on the guitar, rather your forearm is pushing is against the front top edge of the guitar like my buddy Slash there.

I think that Slash's chains got welded to the bridge pickup there, or maybe his bracelets are Alnico II's and are part of the sound? :shock: So, that's his secret, eh? :lol:

I wanted to respond to the last two posts, firstly as a fan of the "Don't anchor your hand, keep it floating" and also to say I don't like dreadnaughts because of the way the arm wants to rest on the top of the guitar, and in my case, it leaves a mark from the corner, like a gash in my bare forearm, almost cuts off circulation and seems to hurt after awhile, not that it is a big issue. I guess my point is that I have always liked to sweep or move the arm and use slightly less wrist?

So, I was playing my inexpensive Cort Earth dreadnaught outside last night and that was a bit of a problem, or as much of a problem as it's ever been - I get sweat on the upper part of the big lower bout of the guitar. That's why I got rid of my dreadnaughts, except I got the Cort because I missed my CBS Masterworks which I sold, and maybe shouldn't have. I don't use my Garrison A/E at all due to it's size, and got a used Tacoma mini-jumbo A/E cutaway to take it's place, and allow 'free sweeping' of the right arm over a small, but booming-like-a-cannon guitar. You could do windmills with it?

Well, I bought a lower-priced smaller old Seagull S6 too, 1992, for my outdoor guitar, only to find that cedar/cherrywood didn't project quite enough, with much of the 'boom' going back to the belly so then came the Cort which was not a big investment, but is the traditional spruce/mahogany and it projects like an electric guitar plugged in to an amplifier. :?: That's my story on that - still have a borrowed 12 string which is a dreadnaught, and naturally bigger due to it's length and everything, but that doesn't change my preferences. I always try to get my arm out front, and free to swing.

Regarding the original question about fixing or tightening down the Strat bridge, yes we have some prior discussion on that, it came up before in other threads. In short, you can tighen down the trem claw, or block the sustain block itself with a piece of wood, and reset your intonation. I refrained from answering that right away, because others can share basically the same in their own words, and it's nice to hear from others, as we have already. 8)

So, on that issue with the Strat, you can go ahead and 'fix' the bridge, or keep your palm off of it. Again, I have reasons for certain setups on guitars, just as I have my own reasons for their sizes, which we choose, but can't control at their source. With certain Strats, I don't want a tremolo arm attached, but still use the trem, as you noticed with your own palm, by palming it down, back & forth, and sometimes sticking my fingers under the tail end really fast to lift it up, while I can't pick at the same time as pulling that unorthodox stunt. I also palm Teles to add some degree of tremolo, by forcing down the little bit of strings between saddles and the point where they go into the body. And while I've played Tele or Les Paul fairly often, they have that chunky feel to me which cuts into my arm slightly again, so I need to keep my arm out in front. Strat has the arm and tummy contour of course, along with a few other models and that eliminates that problem or whatever, they're so smooth.

FWIW anyhow, I live near an outdoor bandshell where there are concerts 2 - 3 times a week - I hear Strats anywhere from 50 - 70% of the time, but I'll listen to ANY guitar or go outside and practice with the live venue as my backing track.

Blue Jay - great response man, thanks, I appreciate the wisdom. And for what it's worth, I've got the message don't mess with the bridge; work on my playing style.