How does a guitarist become an acoustic guitarist?

Get a lesson or two or even more.
I waited til I was 47 for my first lesson. And I’m way better for it - not the wait, the lesson!!
Jonny Moss on this here forum is the man that has made it happen, although he’ll say it’s all me and he just shows me how to get better.
Money well spent.
A year of lessons is cheaper than a guitar and will make you a better player more than buying another guitar will.
Mike

There are plenty of acoustic guitar players who play lead lines and regular chords on an acoustic guitar. Nothing wrong with this style at all - if you do it on an acoustic then you're an acoustic guitar player! I mean, Clapton did okay with his unplugged album (as did a ton of other rockers). There's Maury Muehleisen who plays all those lovely lines on the Jim Croce records. There's no doubt a ton of others.

And then there's flatpicking... An entire style based on playing lead lines with a flatpick and using the same chords (probably simpler chords) as electric players. You don't even have to like bluegrass, there's enough flatpicking that isn't bluegrass to keep one happy for a lifetime. And such a road soon takes you to gypsy jazz - same thing, plectrum, acoustic, away you go. If you know your way around a guitar neck and are adept at soloing you're already there. You just have to learn a few of the songs.

Fingerstyle itself is indeed something you have to work on, but at a basic level a few simple accompaniment patterns are easy enough, and after that its just adding extra patterns and chord shapes (which you probably know anyway). From how you describe your playing this ought to be straightforward for you. It does get slightly more difficult when you edge into things like Travis picking / Thumbpicking (my world) when a certain amount of picking hand thumb and finger independence is needed (but not really much - I think this is the simplest guitar style there is). Players like Chet Atkins and Eddie Pennington do this on semi-acoustic or acoustics, so again, not really much difference on any guitar. There are, of course, much more complex fingerstyle styles, as demonstrated very impressively by many members here, but you only have to go as far down this track as you wish. I arrived at the Mississippi John Hurt station, got off, and pretty much stayed there :-)

My tale: I played electric in bands from the time I was fifteen through till now (I'm sixty-one), although the band gigs are much rarer now, and tend to be just depping. I only started playing acoustic gigs four or five years ago when I looked into my future and realised that was the direction I wanted to go in (and probably always had). Luckily for me, I had played acoustic guitar my entire guitar playing life (I started with an acoustic). Way back when my friends were listening to Ozzy Osborne and working out Randy Rhoads's solos I was already listening to and attempting to play Stefan Grossman stuff. Its probably why I was never much of a lead player myself, even though I faked it for many years. I recall when I was about eighteen I was going to a college in town, about four miles from home, and I cycled in. I was so determined to figure out how to play that steady / alternating bass beneath a lead line that for a week I cycled home and back at lunchtime just to have about fifteen minutes playing Stefan Grossman's Tickle Dew. By the end of that week (practicing before going to college and when I got home, too) I could do it. But it was another almost forty years before I went out on solo acoustic gigs, and even then that journey started off - and remains - very low key.

Derek

Great responses guy's thank you. Lots of food for thought. I had never considered the move from acoustic to electric, major change in my view and I can see how people have struggled.
At present my arthritis is manageable and affects my stamina more than dexterity but I know it will only get worse over the years. In response to people's kind suggestions I use 12s on my Martin and 11s on my Ovation, both have a low action set up. I am a Fender guy so have played Strats and some Teles all my time with the odd Gibson thrown in occasionally. I have had to move from 11s down to 9s over the years and than really is a side effect of arthritis.
My aim acoustically would be to play more in the style of James Taylor which seems very relaxed and accompany the voice. Not too ambitious I hope and I do play a lot.
Last Sunday when my wife was working I logged over five hours so I'll know it'll come good.
So thanks again to all those who have shared their thoughts, suggestions and stories, means a lot folks and if anyone has any electric guitar questions, well, happy to help if I can.
Cheers Steve

I started on acoustic guitars, and tried playing electric. Found myself literally plucking the strings off the body lol .....

I am struggling to understand how an acoustic can be 'easier' to play than an electric though, logic says to me an electric is a thinner neck (so less stretching), and much lighter strings (so easier to fret) ?

In some ways both those features actually make an electric harder to play. I prefer a wider neck and that combined with lighter strings means I often push the top and bottom strings over the edge of the fretboard

Andy, 'silly moustache' Just checked out you 'thumb and index finger' video. Interesting and helpful. I like it.