I want to thank those of you who have responded and welcomed me so far... After reading what Hammurabi wrote I would have to admit that he is right and that is why I am stuck in such a rut. And I hope I am not going to offend anyone by saying this but I was trained very traditionally... ie; hold your guitar at a proper position, proper fingering, heavy metronomes and heavy therory. With this style of training I learned to play "skilled" guitar but totally lost the feel of the music if that makes sense. I can't color outside the lines now and for me think that my training in a lot of ways did me a disservice. I now require everything in black n white... I think that is why I am "stiffly" playing and looking for someone to spell out a pattern for me. The other people in the band have absolutely NO training and couldn't even tell you what key they are playing in but all have a much better sound than I. It is my hope that one day I can bring together my classical with other types of styles and get my feel back. I absolutely adore freestyle guitar and if any of you are interested, take a listen to my at the moment guitar hero who plays this style... his name is Randy "Steele" Travis and you can find him at http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/nevels