Having recently spent some time working hard at moving away from finger-picking the same pattern over and over again throughout a song, to learning to finger-pick notes of the melody of songs that I accompany myself singing, it has provoked some thoughts that I would appreciate views from you guitar-playing 'Catters.

1)        The melody of a folk song is made up of notes of various durations – half notes, dotted quarter notes, quarter notes, eighth notes etc etc. My fingers seem determined to play a note at every eighth (i.e. 2 strikes for every 'beat' or quarter note, irrespective of what the real duration of the relevant melody note is), so I end up with other 'fill-in' notes, that are not a true part of the melody. This is probably a habit from those early days when I learned the 'standard' fingerpicking patterns. Does that make sense – have I explained it sufficiently well or have I just confused you all?? The question is do others find that you discipline your fingers to play exactly the melody, or do you hit a note every eighth note, or something in-between??? If something in between, how do you go about deciding what duration of note to play when?

2)        If I want to play the same note (i.e. same string, same fret) for two successive eighth notes, it doesn't seem to sound particularly smooth – is this just something I have to get my fingers better trained at or is there a technique to get it better – e.g. is it workable to pick upwards for the first note then pick downwards on the same string for the second note?

3)         Most of the experienced players I listen to here in the uk folk clubs, when they accompany a song, don't seem to play the exact melody, but don't play the same old pattern endlessly throughout a song. Hence the guitar line sounds interesting without sounding boringly repetitive, but doesn't dominate over the vocals. Whilst I do use some chord substitutions, and use bass runs between chords, I would greatly value any pointers about how to chose what note to play when.

Hope that hasn't overloaded or bored you all!

Would greatly appreciate any help.

Rgds

OF