I heard some Simon & Garfunkel songs on the radio last night for the first time in years and was suprised that I quite enjoyed them – I'd always thought of them as being a little on the prissy side. I suppose that's about as close as I can imagine to what Ian was thinking of. Paul Simon is a solid, laidback fingerpicker who never breaks a sweat.

Much better is someone like Ed Trickell – I only thought of him because I'm listening to his 1960s album "the telling takes me home" (wonderful stuff) a lot right now. Simple, gentle fingerpicking, very accomplished but nothing fancy. Entirely appropriate, very intimate sounding. That kind of laidback fingerpicking can sound quite sensual when its close-mic'd.

Actually, guitars often sound prissiest to me when they're being played in their most technically accomplished and flashy way. A lot of neo-classical guitar playing sounds prissy to me; quite a bit of mainstream jazz guitar; a lot of the new flamenco players too. (obviously I'm not thinking of people like Ramon Montoya or Django Reinhardt here) And while I love Baden Powell on Os Afro Sambas, pretty much everything else he's recorded sounds like he's playing with a furrowed brow and a very stiff neck – all too staid.