my only guiding principle is that if hear abit of something I like, I try and nick it and put it into my style - on the principle that if I like it - its probably okay.

i regret never learning to use a plectrum properly. I love that church picking sound that rambling Jack Eliot does so well. He uses a stiff pick plays a bass note and then sort of flaps it up and down gently over the treble strings. Also some of the syncopated stuff django did, you can't do without a plectrum.

Having said that I think I do okay.

i said my only guiding principle - probably I have dozens. But the other main one is always use an open string if you can. you have to be able to do barre chords but really for an acoustic guitar - open strings sound better, than held down ones.

john Williams once said electric guitar playing is about the way the note sustains, whist acoustic playing is about the way it decays and dies. I think that is very profound, not a hundred percent accurate look at all the trouble electric guitar players go to using old valves and making holes in the speaker for that authentiic ragged surf sound, but a good guiding principle.