Hi Jerry,

Good question! If we can remove the "can you top this?" ego stuff for a moment, it comes down to what the heck is accompaniment anyway? For me, anything that enhances the emotional impact if a song is appropriate accompaniment.

The problem is that one innapropriate note will wipe out the emotional impact of many 'right' ones so I opt for a minimalist approach; the 'less is better' style.

My preference is finger picking either on bare fingers or with finger picks when I need to project more sound. Arthritis has made the pinch grip on a flat pick uncomfortable so I tend to drop the things. A recently completed a CD project with champion autoharper Les Gustafson-Zook was recorded with us both bare fingered; but one bare fingered contra dance would bloody my right hand.

Musically, anything that works for me is fair game: chords, drones, bass lines, melody fragments, whole melodies, harmony lines and the like.

As you can guess from my mudcat name, I stick to dropped D tuning for a large proportion of the time. It seems to be most musically flexible. Also, that arthritis makes certain left hand positions painful and dropped D helps me stay away from the nasties. Ironically, playing in the key of C is now my most difficuly task because of the C chord, not the much feared F.

Hope that helps. I'd love to see what other folks post.

Ray