right hand position: to anchor or not to anchor?

[åron]

No anchoring here, for the most part, except when picking arpeggios I sometimes grab the body with the pinky for reference.

[clifffclaven]

I anchor, but I need to get away from it.
The same thing is showing up on my gloss black DKMGT.
Look what it does to the finish on my guitars:

yep. check out the les paul on the right.

[corrupt]

anchoring is bad. i rest my arm on the curve of the body and lay my palm on the bridge.

[jwoods986]

I anchor my ring finger. I thought it was a bad thing, and tried to not anchor for a while, then I realized - do what works best for you. Plus, I noticed from watching their videos that Yngwie, Vinnie Moore, Impellitteri, Michael Angelo, and Petrucci anchor. If it's good enough for them..........

[Soap]

how do you guys hold your picking hand?
do you anchor one or more fingers one the body of the guitar, or does your hand float closed over the strings? also do you have different approaches when playing rythm than when playing lead?

1. Whatever is comfortable is what works for me.
Whatever the song calls for and I can learn my hand to play it that way, is the intended goal, thus after awhile becomes comfortable.
I have no set way of doing it.
There are times when my hand feels like its not resting I'll move it abit to get it to feel right. I don't look in the mirror at my hand and fingers and etc my hand will tell me how its doing and I adjust it.

what, in your experience, is the proper way to pick and why?

2. See number one. Same principle and training of hand applies.

[MartinBarre]

I anchor, but I need to get away from it.
The same thing is showing up on my gloss black DKMGT.
Look what it does to the finish on my guitars:

That's a beautiful guitar!

[Ben...]

I do the fist thing. I tried pinkie anchoring but I just couldn't get used to it. I think it's partly because I have short pinkies but also I can't do sweeps or any rhythm while anchored because my pinkie gets in the way.