my dog betty has a few friends in the neighborhood. they share toys and sticks and walks in the woods. they come into our house and drink from betty's water bowl, which she hardly ever does (betty prefers showers, but that's a story for another time). betty still has puppy energy and sometimes gets the zooms when she's excited about something. i know when it's about to happen. she gets the look and then she's off like a shot, all streamlined and pretty and windblown. anyway, they all know where they each live and which toys and bones they will find at each others' houses and where the cats hang out and where the food bowls are and who their people are and what their cars sound like when they are coming home. they are clear about their home base. yesterday, i was talking about right hand finger style patterns for guitar and how much more efficient it is when you really practice the concept of each finger having its own string to play. it's not a strummy kind of movement, it's a closing in of the fingers; bending. each one gets its own place to be in charge. T12321 pick a bass note and use the first three open strings and just do that over and over again and you will get the clarity of it. practice in your head, on your knee, on the steering wheel, and especially on the open strings of your guitar while the red sox game is on. ok, be a little sensitive to your loved ones-people and animals that are trying to watch the game or sleep. from this practice comes independence and control over your right hand (or picking hand, as it is so correctly called in acoustic guitar magazine so as to cover whichever dominant hand type you may be) and from there, so many things can happen: that's my melody note. ok, well, then these are my filler notes. yeah, and over here, i'll take care of the accompaniment part. ok, but just let me play the bass notes all the time, got it? wheeeeee. oh, that was betty taking off with her friend's tennis ball. ok, so there's always room for creativity and individual interpretation. enjoy.