Folks, as always, you 'Catters have come up with great, and varied ideas to get me to 'think outside of the box', as well as highlighting that what I percieve as problems may just need looking at from a different angle.

As always, there are many ways to play a guitar, and they're all right - just depends on the person and the situation and sound that person wants, so I've got plenty of different ideas to work with now.

My thanks to you all. I'll be taking everyone's ideas and trying them out on way or another over the coming weeks.

Windsinger, I'd definitley be interested in that book you mentioned.

M Ted, you are right, I have prpbably arranged my repertoire of probably 50 or so songs around a maximum half a dozen or so styles / basic picking patterns, which is what prompted my quest - too much 'every song sounding the same'. I'll have to search for the Don Sebesky book you mentioned - haven't come across it yet in my travels around uk music shops, but I'm gonna be looking on the net pronto like!

Patrick, I agree wholheartedly - my brain struggles with multi-tasking if I try to get too clever and pick out the melody whilst remebering all the verses of the song. I guess what I'm looking for is the half-way-house between everything sounding the same, and the too-clever-fingers-flying-everywhere look, so that each song sounds individual, and interesting, without over-taxing my ageing brain to the point where it can't remeber the words of the song!

Once again. my thanks to you all.

Rgds

Old Folkie