The general rule, which I mention in most of the lessons, is that the thumb handles the three bass strings, the index, middle and ring fingers handle the G, B and E strings respectively. Simple as that. However, you'll find that the rule is broken more often than not to accommodate specific runs and chord/melody configurations in specfic tunes.
The movies that I put together show the way I play each specific tune, so between the general rule mentioned above and the movies, you should be able to piece the lessons together. Listen, watch and mimic is what I always did when learning new material that I was copying ... mostly just 'listen and mimic' because there were no movie lessons when I was starting out.
I'll point out once again the difference between finger style and finger picking, to my mind anyway:
Finger style is a way of orchestrating a piece of music on a guitar. You weave bass line, melody and chord fragments into one arrangement. There is nothing symmetrical about it, not much repetition of patterns, since it's all based on a tune ... the three elements combine to become the tune. Each section of the piece is different from the others, all must be learned and pieced together to form the whole.
Finger picking is more of an accompaniment. It usually is a pattern of fingers hitting certain strings at certain moments no matter what the chord is. It doesn't need to follow a melody line -- something else is doing that, ie vocalist, another player. So what you need to learn for finger picking are the basic patterns which you use for the whole tune.
Does that help?
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