Relearning guitar
 

So I have a Christian background that I left after a kind of religious nuclear winter freshman year. I used to be a worship leader in high school, which basically means that I sang lead vocals and played guitar and bass every Friday and Sunday for our youth group -- you know, contemporary Christian praise music.

Anyway, I'd given up the guitar for a while because it was too strongly attached to my faith, but recently I've been wanting to relearn it -- it's a damn shame to know the basics of a good instrument and never use it for emotional reasons. However, the only acoustic songs I know are praise/gospel songs, which nobody has any interest in. And I don't really listen to acoustic music.

My point is, recommend me some good bands or songs to listen to and learn from. I play excellent rhythm guitar but I'm trying to learn more about flatpicking and fingerpicking.

I suggest buying a fingerpicking/flatpicking book. If you learn the theory, your abilities will improve much better than simply parroting songs.

check this out: www.wholenote.com

they've got craploads of songs and lessons on there that you can practice, in just about any style you could want.

Listening and learning Led Zepplin songs is how I taught myself to finger pick.

Finger picking is a good deal trickier than using a pick and you can learn bad habits very easily that will really slow down your advancement. If your really serious about fingerpicking I would suggest going to at least a couple formal lessons with a classical guitarist so that you can see the appropriate way to hold your fingers, hand and arm. If you dont want to go to an instructor I would recommend looking at as many pictures of classical or flamenco players hands as you can and then try to emulate their positions by looking at yourself in the mirror as you play. It would also help if you look up free stroke and picado. I will warn you in advance that fingerpicking is a serious challenge but once you get it you will wonder why they even invented picks. Two other tips: you have to be able to do something slow and precise before youll get it to sound good fast and the less tense you are the faster you will be. Good luck