Even worse...
Not only is the kitchen faucet still leaking and the front yard strangled with weeds, I got all fired up and loaded a Fleetwood Mac oldie to play along with, no pick. Sounds like mud. Beginning to lose faith in my ability to give up the plastic crutch. At least, sunset over the Pacific was beautiful.
 
John

The first time I saw Clapton he had Knopfler as his second guitarist. I had heard and read so much about Clapton that there was no way this guy was going to live up to all the bs hype.

When they were playing "Wonderful Tonight" the hair on the back of my head was standing up. My wife looked at me and said "The hair on the back of my head is standing up!" I knew at that moment I was witnessing great guitarist delivering the goods.

Saw Clapton several years later and it wasn't the same. Him and Knopfler were pushing each other.

I just had to share.

I noticed in that Knopfler-Atkins video that while Mark's right-hand fingernails are close-cropped, Chet's are long. Two different styles of playing. Mark relies on a super-bright tone for definition, while Chet is using his fingernails as plectra. His precision is frickin' amazing.

Trying to give up the ole plastic crutch ..huh ? John ....IMHO that may be too extreme a way to approach it ...
 
I have my right hand developed to a pretty high degree just from having practiced certain things along the way ....
 
A very natural way to incorporate playing with out a pick can be achieved by backing off on the goals and expectations in the first place ...
 
By that I mean kick back , grab your guitar noodle around by grabbing some chords first and play the whole chord at once with your fingers ...then play it again this time repeating a bass note while letting the chord ring ...
then play a chord and play a lead or a melody over it while still holding the chord .....
take a chord progression you like of a tune and play it very slowly and do little variations ...
do little run through s where you hit the chord and then play a little run over that chord in the progression ..
do that for all the chords in the progression ....
play the first chord as a chord , play the second chord as a run , play the 3 rd chord as a bass part , play the 4 th chord as an arpeggio ......make a game out of it and just have a little fun doing it 
I used to love doing that to a tune called Little Wing ......
 
Another thing you can do is if you practice your scales , spend a little time doing them only with your fingers ...
the thing is not to compare your finger style approach to your picking approach ....
doing that is like telling a person why can't you be like your ( fill in the blank -------) he or she can bla bla bla
it just doesn't work ....a blade of grass grows a days worth of growth in a day
 
I've been face to face with all the musicians that have been mentioned in this thread so far once upon a time  
that and two bucks will get me a cup of coffee ......
 
In my past , the people that impressed me the most were the Jazz players ...some of those guys could play faster and cleaner w out a pick than I could play with a pick ...
 
Joe Pass is a perfect example for playing finger style and blazing leads ....
George Benson , had his thumb doing octave stuff while he was up picking leads at the same time .....
Some of Jimi's  best playing was done w out a pick ...
Tommy Emmanuel has very high skill in fingerstyle and holly cwap lol when he does those harp harmonics ...
 
There's probably dozens of players I could mention in all genre's of music that can do some real tasty playing w out the use of a plectrum ....
 
I can't speak for any of them , but I can tell you this ...in my case I happen to enjoy playing with out a pick often only because it helps me achieve a certain tone and feel I can not get when I'm playing with a pick only ...
the same is also true for me when it come to using a pick  over just the fingers ....
don't even get me started because my normal way of playing involves me playing with a pick and fingers at the same time
 
good luck man hang in there ,
 
Flying Fingers Fernandez
 
 

Here's someone with an incredible right hand fingerpicking technique - Clive Carroll. He has incredible right hand stamina and strength. 
 

This subject can be very serious ... here's one for a little comic relief  ..
 
  
 
Kenny

Jeez,
 
Heavy duty stuff. Won't be able to play like this for several more incarnations.
 
Thanks Kenny for your advice. Much appreciated.
 
Figure the moderators lost bowel control over this blasphemous thread and moved the communication out of main stream public view. There is however hope that their excess secretions will dry up after a day or so. Personal hygeine is imperative in the transition back to normal.
 
Trying to make friends here with good advice...
 
Love to all you guys,
 
John
 

Gothrie Govan and Frank Gambale use a pick and look at how good they are. I think if you are into sweep picking then the pick is the only way.
 
I used to play with a bass player in a Jazz ensemble many years ago who played electric bass instead of acoustic bass and he used a pick too. It was a sound like no other. Incredible. It suited the drum sound I was making at the time too.
 
It shouldn't really matter in the end. It is how the music moves you. It either does or it does not. Pick or no pick. Sounds like being able to do both opens up more possibilities. Form a sound engineers point of view though plectrum playing for (acoustic) rhythm parts often records better.
 
 

Thanks Jeff. Never heard of those dudes, but alternate pathways to learn something new. Appreciate.
 
Listened to the finger pickers links, and their incredible sounds. Mark K getting the bite of a pick but with no pick. Fleetwood Mac, pick sound with no pick.
 
Muriel was on my old Finger Picking Styles CD as a winner. Incredible to watch her do a multi part orchestra. Fingers alone.
 
Me, can't do anything without sounding like dulled mud and hitting other strings to mess up the sound even more. The potential is there though to do so much more with 5 fingers than with one piece of plastic.
 
Like Keny advised, maybe to take baby steps toward a goal. My pickless playing sounds like crap from now, but maybe some day.
 
John

Hey John ,
 
Here's a laid back finger style thing where you can see the right hand and what it's doing
every thing I did was pretty much mentioned in my other post ...
 

 
Kenny