Originally Posted by: da_ardvarkIt quite apparent to me that this guy has had classical training. So I'd recommend classical guitar lessons

I agree, this guy is probably classically trained. That said, you don't necessarily have to have classical guitar lessons yourself to build your fingerpicking skills up to the level where you can play those sorts of leads with them (although it would probably help eventually, especially for the arpeggios). Tremolo picking with your thumb is not as hard as it looks, especially if you've already got a bit of fingerpicking under your belt. It's really quite similar to working out your tremolo picking technique with a flatpick - it's just a matter of experimenting with different angulations of your thumb joint, and of your wrist against the guitar, and finding the position that feels most comfortable for you to tremolo pick in; and the fluency and speed, of course, ought to come with practice. It may also help to grow the thumbnail on your picking hand a little. But as you said, the guy in the video only starts using his thumb for tremolo picking towards the end of the video; for the tremolo picking parts in the earlier half, he's using the nail on his index finger, reinforced by his thumb - the technique that many finger-pickers, me included, (sorry, that sounded so snobby :o :o) use most often for speed picking.