All good advice above.

If you have a DVD player or a VCR, there are instruction DVDs and tapes out there that can help a lot.

One I highly recommend for generally improving your guitar playing is "Pumping Nylon," by Scott Tennant. You can get it either DVD or tape. Click HERE and scroll down. There's a book, too, but it requires that you be able to read music—however, there is an edition of the book that includes both standard notation and tablature. But either the DVD or the tape alone would do the job.

It's specifically aimed at classical guitarists, but it isn't a "How to Play the Classic Guitar" video. It can apply to any style of guitar, from folk to rock to jazz to you name it. He talks about hand positions a bit, but it's with the idea of keeping your hands relaxed, "cocked, and ready." It's mostly a collection of warm-ups, practice exercises, and "calisthenics" he has put together. They're aimed at increasing the finger strength, speed, and dexterity of both hands. You don't need to be able to read music; he shows you what to do. Just playing through some of the stuff he demonstrates has really improved my playing a lot and helped me shed some bad habits that I picked up early on .

Among other things, Tennant says that most guitarists use a whole lot more pressure fretting the strings than they really need to (a habit we get into when we're first learning and our fingers are not all that strong yet), and that keeps the hand tense and inhibits rapid finger movement and fast chord changes. He shows you how to find out just how much pressure you really need, and how to "lighten up." Keeping the hands as relaxed as possible is all-important.

Some of his exercises are real "finger-busters," but if you take 'em slow and easy over a period of time, there won't be much you can't do on a guitar.

It sounds like you're really dedicated. Great! Good luck and good pickin'!

Don Firth