The Christmas spirit got to me and I felt like dabbling in fingerpicking again (holiday style). I started to learn fingerpicking a few months ago after jumping ahead in some lessons and diving into some books. But some wise folks on here suggested I stick to the basics before moving onto fingerpicking. I"m so glad I did because I couldnt even cleanly switch chords back then and I have improved so much. So I'm able to do some fingerpicking much better but I'm having problems making a death grip with my fret hand and causing a lot of tenseness and pain. I think it's because I'm so focused on doing the correct moves with my right hand that I'm inadvertantly putting way too much pressure on my fret hand when I switch chords. I was also doing so many things at once that I'm not used to. After I could play the instrumental, I added vocals, but then it was alot of work to do everything else at the same time like keep rhythm, not stumble over words, etc. (Next time I won't add vocals for awhile longer.)

How can I improve this? I practiced for too long yesterday and am still icing my fret wrist and hand. But I did pretty well otherwise....I was able to play Lisa's instrumental fingerpicking of What Child is This. But I definitely need to correct that death grip for future sessons...Any help or tips is much appreciated.