This may be a question that's been asked before, but I had to post this. I've been playing Scruggs style now for about 8 months and am loving it. The learning is slow but I am getting better all the time. I always meant to learn clawhammer as well, but put it off for fear that I'd get confused doing both at once.
Well I finally couldn't take it anymore and stared on clawhammer this weekend. I can fumble my way through a very basic Boil Them Cabbage Down, but I think I am already starting to notice something. I find clawhammer style playing to be very smooth and very free flowing. With Scruggs style, I find that sticking to roll patterns can be a little constraining (not if you're fast enough, which I'm not, 
) but that clawhammer seems to have room for a lot more improvisation and moving around.
My question is this, when playing clawhammer, it seems a lot easier to just "go with the flow" of the song and bring my own embelishments out of it than it does when I'm playing Scruggs style. Anyone else notice this?
Also, I have the basic Bum-Ditty motion pretty well down pat, and I realize that there will be times when I will deviate from this motion, say to hit a short string of melody notes one after another, etc. The trouble I seem to be having is with my accuracy when bringing the back of my nail down on one string at a time, especially when playing a little faster than a turtles pace 
. Is single string accuracy something that just gets better with time and practice, or is there some trick I am missing?
Any advice is, as always, greatly appreciated.
Thanks!