Floating Hand Method?

Admittedly a guess, but probably correct: Floating is not anchoring one's picking hand (e.g., heel on bridge, pinkie on pickguard), so it "floats" over the strings while one picks. This doesn't apply to strumming chords, but just about everything else -- fingerstyle, single line playing, basically anything that requires picking accuracy where players often tend to anchor the picking hand in some way to ensure accuracy. Floating is one of those ideally "correct" ways to play, yet fewer than a quarter of the players I know actually can play accurately that way. Advantages? Well, if you can get good at floating, moving from string to string can be smoother and faster and less fatiguing. For fingerstyle, the advantage is clear: more fingers freed to play. After all these years, I've become comfortable enough with my guitars and picking accuracy that most of the time I half-float by letting my fingers and heel sort lightly graze the strings not in play or pickguard. If I'm playing rhythm with lead fills, floating works well, as it allows a quick switch between strumming/brushing.

A good tune to try out to see the difference and/or practice floating is SRV's Pride & Joy. For this the wide movement from the low E to the high e can be fatiguing and stiff if one too firmly anchors the picking hand. OTOH (heh), floating not only makes it less tiring, but gives the shuffle and nicer, more laid-back feel -- assuming one can hit those strings accurately.

Hope this helps -G

Edit: It occurred to me that this might also refer to floating the fretting hand over the fingerboard, as certain players will do in some pieces. The advantage is wider stretch fingerings. However. this is best done on a shredding guitar: low action and low required fretting force.

I agree with your interpretation of floating. Lazy people like to complain about how it's inaccurate, but they just haven't bothered to got coordinated enough.

Yeah, like me. I am way to lazy to figure that crap out.

I alternate, depending on the need for speed.

The only time I anchor my picking hand - either fingerstyle or with a pick - is if it's called for in a technique. Example: REM's "The One I Love"... the heel of my hand gets anchored for the muting.

In addition to the advantages Greg listed, you can move your pick or fingers to various parts of the neck freely... that's good for (among other things) tapping, artificial harmonics, getting different tones by playing closer to the neck or bridge, etc.

The majority of players I know, including me, started out with an anchor. It really becomes a crutch, and it's very difficult to break away from it. That's why most guitarists anchor either the pinky or the heel. However, most of the really good guitarists that I know or have seen perform don't anchor - it's worth the (considerable) effort to get accuracy without it.

An interesting sidenote that I haven't considered before - I have students come to me who use an anchor, and I talk about and demonstrate the advantages of floating the picking hand. But I don't recall ever having that discussion with someone who started with me from the beginning... I guess you emulate what you see.

When playing faster I anchor my pinky, as most people do. The only time I float really is when Im playing slower and ... it kinda just happens lol i dont do it for better technique I just sometimes raise my hand.
But I guess if you were to use it all the time it would give better technique as your hand would be more free.

EDIT: In fact, thinking about it, I guess its cos it come naturally now. Whereas twice before I tried to force myself to learn to pick like that, but it didnt last long. But now that iv got better I just do it without thinking sometimes cos it doesnt feel awkard anymore...

Hmm...that's interesting...I never really thought about it before. I float pick most of the time but my elbow rests on my guitar giving me a bit more accuracy.

I pretty much play floating exclusively when there is no muting to be done. Not because it is 'better', but because I started playing like that when I had no teacher and it just feels weird to anchor my hand anywhere.

I am proficient in both becuase like noteboat says, its not always practical to play exclusivley one way or the other. For a lot of metal songs my palm gets anchored the entire time becuase of all the palm muting going on. For jazz, i almost never anchor. I dont really think its fair to say that most good players dont anchor. Almost every GIT graduate I've seen anchors, and they are all incredible players. Joh Petrucci anchors. Michael Angelo, the man with the most chops anywhere, anchors. I think both have their pros and cons. Anchoring technically uses less muscle energy since you dont have to lift your palm/ pinky or whatever off the guitar, but floating gives slightly better accesibilty to certain techniques, but then again so does anchoring.

I've always picked the strings like that. Though, I've thought of it less as "floating" and more as bouncing. As in bouncing my arm down to pick a string and bouncing it back up, it's really fluid. I could never really anchor my hand over the strings with a finger or anything, it never felt right.

Yeah both are useful, but I definately float more. It seems to me that the freer you keep your hand, the less likely you are to screw up because you aren't trying as hard not to screw up...if that makes any sense. I find everytime I pointedly try to pick a certain way everything gets fouled up, but if I just try to play as naturally as possible ("make love to the instrument," as a teacher once advised me, believe it or not) things go much better. Even if that means anchoring

I dont really pay attention to what I do. I guess anchor mostly. Its just how I learned.

I never really payed much attention but now that I am aware it seems that I always float. Just the way I learned I suppose.
The problem I am facing now is I am having a terrible time learning to palm mute.

i anchor when i play figerstyle... that pinky just refuses to leave the pickguard.. but its not firmly anchored as to where if i were to need to relocate my right hand i would have a problem... it just kinda sits there cuz i cant focus on picking with all 5 fingers at once. :? oh well it still comes out sounding alright. As for muting i dont usually have the palm anchored completely.. just again sort of resting for quick movement.. i use alot of half muting and qquick mute-unmute techniques during riffs... so it makes floating almost neccicary when i use a pick.