Once again, thanks everyone for keeping the encouragement coming.

Mike L2: The original frustration that I felt *came* from practicing....the fact that I could get something right 10-12 times and them next time I tried it I'd be "Mr Fumble Fingers". I wasn't talking about the situation Will describes above where you start practicing and quickly realise that it's a "non musical" day so best give up and try later, but a day when things are going OK.

I do split practices into chunks where I work for a while on something new, or that I'm finding difficult, and then play somthing I'm comfortable with.

Tangledwood: Yeah, it's good to challenge yourself...but can be frustrating. I think I's slowly starting to learn to art of sussing out what's "possible" for me now and what's "wait a year or two before trying that again"! Things will hopefully go better once I'm better "calibrated" when looking at whether something's within or near my current capabilities.

On the practice front, I'm probably not doing enough scales. I'll do a few to warm up usually, and then go straight into a piece. I think a major change I'm going to make is to really get to grips with scales and learn the fingerboard as well as I can. It's very patchy at the moment.

Piers Plowman: Some excdllent tips, thanks!

I've been trying to play by ear for a while...often cheating a bit by learning from a YouTube video so I can see fingers as well :-) . I can pick up basic melodies, but sorting out chord sequences or complex fingering and getting them to sound right is something I'm finding hard. Incidentally I'm finding it much easier to pick up melodies using my new octave mandolin. The tuning intervals seem to "suit my ear better" somehow But there's a big difference between picking up the melody to, say, Ashokan Farewell on the mando and picking up the middle guitar solo that Russ Barenberg does on "Drummers of England"....I'm STILL struggling with that after months, although I can play the basic melody (as per Will Fly's YouTube vid) no problem.

I defintiely use motor memory rather than visualisation.

Leenia: I'm aware of the "block of frets approach...I've just not been very systematic until now in applying it :-(

Bobert: Oh, it's fun, definitely, mostly. And a huge sense of achievement when I finally crack something that's been giving me problems. Bashing out chords I can do, and I'm now starting to sing and bash chords at the same time...even in public a few times now.

It's what I call "real" guitar playing that's been frustrating me: the style Will describes so well above. I think that I just have to realise that ability to play like that ( Will F: Playing a more complex fingerpicked tune - i.e. where the melodic line is not tied rhythmically or harmonically to the rhythm or the chord pattern ) is something that'll take years to develop properly, not the scant 2 that I've been playing. I think, looking back at my OP on this thread, that I probably had unrealistic expectations of where I "should" be after 2 years of averaging an hour a day practice. Many posts here have reassured my that I'm probably at a pretty reasonable skill level for the time I've been playing. So that's reduced my frustration immediately :-)

Poppagator: Again, great advice, thanks. I'm definitely at the "slowly and laboriously training my fingers" stage...but now more accepting that this is probably normal for many, rather than me being a uniquely incompetent learner :-)

Lefthanded guitar: I've been playing for a couple of years, and straightforward chord-bashing is OK for me (thoygh I still need to improve rhythm patern strumming). It's the more complex fingerstyle stuff that's been bothering me. I've had a few lessons, with 2 different teachers, but I've found that I do better on my own...certainly once I discovered the on-line tutorials that Will Fly and a few others do, although I have picked up some really good tips from my most recent teacher.

And I have started playing at singarounds. The first couple were a disaster, but the nerves are starting to come under control a bit now, and the last session was much better (though I still fumbled a bit). I'm actually looking forward to the next one now, rather than worrying about it :-)

Thanks, everyone. I'll try and record a few more pieces next week and put them on esnips to get some critical feedback.