Bee-dubya, thanks for the tip about open tuning. It makes sense. (The main songs I do lead solos on are in the key of G or C and have melodies that stick largely within the 1 or 5 chord--songs like "Tennessee Waltz" and "Jambalaya" and "Wildwood Flower"--, for the same reason you mentioned.) What you said about switching from rhythm to lead guitar in standard tuning makes me feel a little less like a hopeless incompetent in view of my inability to really master instrumentals in standard tuning even with a lot of practice.

I think Jeri and JustaPicker made a very important point. Put another way, if you begin and end well, hardly anybody will notice the "mistakes" in the middle. As Jeri sais, "If you mess up, laugh and call it jazz...." -- Gotta love it! -- Also if you hit the wrong chord, just go immediately to the right one and call the "mistake" a "transitional chord."

As for tuning out the audience and concentrating on your playing, Slicker, I think you can "get by with this" on instrumental breaks. It doesn't make for being a good entertainer, though, if you do this throughout your whole performance. (Yeah, I know, it depends on the type of music you're doing. Segovia never paid any attention to the audience unless they were rude--in which case, he'd leave.)