Picking - "floating hand"

[Devilrider]

I've read many posts saying that a floating hand offers many advantages over anchoring. But are there any advantages of anchoring instead of floating?

More importantly, I'm not too sure what floating is. At the moment, I basically don't use my pinks to anchor on the pickguard or anything, and my palm is not resting on the bridge. What I do however, is allow the bottom of my hand to rest on strings that I am not picking. By doing so I have some kind of support and the strings are muted.

How is this different from a floating hand? Should the hand literally be floating and not resting anywhere, meaning the only contact is between the forearm and guitar whilst my picking hand is in the air moving without the palm resting/touching anything? I have tried playing like this but this method has its problems:
1)Hand feels slightly loose
2)Strings can create noise as I change from string to string

I've been playing for 4 months now and can play 16th notes at 110bpm. Is this slow and would a floating hand be beneficial towards faster picking?

Thanks

[Joe Pass Jr]

I still don't understand why speed is such a common benchmark for progress.

Anyway, not having anything to support or at least guide your picking hand seems a bit pointless. If it happens to be more comfortable for you then you should do it. I have never heard of it though and cant imagine it being any more useful in any situation, other than classical finger picking.

As you stated it gives you less opportunity to keep strings muted and it doesn't feel right on your hand. Thats enough to say its not right for you.

[AndyPollow]

michael angelo and tony macalpine ancor fingers and gilbert and dimeola keep them off the guitar and palm mute a little heavy for balance and........... ive never seen anyone shred without touching anything at all with some part of the hand. i tried it and decided it is too difficult. yngwie and i think it was dream theatres guitar player slide fingers. i always thought that is strange and uncooth untill i found a tiny wrist flick and now it is my favorite way to pick but i slide the ring finger on smooth bare wood. i like that cuz you feel free to move but you dont have to mute the strings for balance and the palm naturally moves on and off the bass strings and that mutes the ugly noises i was very lucky i found it.

[MorningStar]

The right hand technique of Robert Fripp is all about floating it. There is no anchoring. Steve Vai on the other hand anchors his whole arm at times onto the body LOL.

[NG7]

Why don't you have sticky threads in this forum? There should be a sticky for floating hand.