But your chunking at 170???
Yes, as the original song is around the 160-165 range and I want to play it one day 
I never practiced Universal Mind to a click, and I always happen to play it fast and a little sloppy. When I slowed down to the actual speed it was pretty solid and getting tired is never an issue. This is anecdotal to me, but I find value in playing things faster because “at tempo” it will feel more manageable, and if you happen to play with a drummer that rushes things live (which I did), you can keep up.
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I thought the original was about 155 ish, maybe I wrong…
If I escape from my bedroom one day and perform in a pub for 10 people with a drummer who’s rushing, it may come handy being able to play it a little faster. Also, I think in a live situation I’d perform at least 20-30% worse, I’ve never played in front of people.
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An other thing I’ve starting working on this week is this lick. I find the position shifts with the left hand pretty demanding, this recording is a good attempt I recorded just now, but usually I screw up with my left hand after a few position shifts. Original is 15 bpm faster.
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Dude, you need to chill out! You are putting you mindset into a negative space before you have arranged a date for the stage to step on! You are very close to nailing it, just enjoy the ride! 
Are you 100% happy with your fretting on this? Can you dominate the lick legato? Judging from your vids I would assume yes, but always worth checking for excess tension that makes you think the picking is the problem…
Edit: referring to the LTE lick
Sounds stellar, super clean
I’m in a quiet positive mood actually regarding my guitar playing in the last few weeks. Even playing in a small pub was out of my reach before, so it’s a massive improvement in mindset for me 
I can hear at least 3 obvious dirty picking mistake in the Stratosphere lick, but it’s getting better day by day.
I can play through the Universal Mind lick only with the freeting hand once without stopping but that’s my maximum at the moment at 170 bpm.
Good good! You should feel positive - I know I would be!
I bet if you could get it twice round with the left hand, then your picking would make it.
I’ll definitely practice this lick with left hand only on top of the chunking I’m doing now, it makes sense.
I can’t remember who said it on this forum and if they coined the phrase, but something like ‘sympathetic tension’ was a concept that resonated with me (if I’m remembering it correctly). Where tension in one hand causes similar tension in the other, causing you to mess up a lick. Its not always obvious which hand it is as it impacts both… just a thought
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Yes I’ve heard about this concept, I definitely need to work on my fretting hand as well, maybe practicing some legato chops. On this video Portnoy is already in the 170 bpm range within a few secs, so I think it’s worth practicing songs on a slightly higher tempo than the original
I guarantee nobody in an audience is going to notice. You play like a stone cold killer in every clip of yours that I’ve watched. The typical bar-band guitarist has nowhere near your level of alternate picking chops.
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Maybe you are right about the audience part. Haha thanks but I only wish I could play like that.
There’s some improvement with one of my arch enemies though:
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Great playing!! Sounds very clean and syncopated.
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Thank you 
Today’s addition to my practice list is the Under a glass moon solo. There’s a nasty chromatic run in that and I’m not sure what I’m doing here is correct. I’m starting on an upstroke, tempo is 100 bpm. I tried starting with a downstroke as well but I’m still struggling with string changes after upstrokes, there’s a lot of excess noise in this case.
Starting with UPSTROKE
Starting with DOWNSTROKE
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I feel there’s a slight improvement with the 3nps stuff since my first post here.
I also uploaded the audio with better quality:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1LMN_ga406ByhLljLiktnQzvcvpQ7m_0I/view?usp=sharing
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Just wanted to chime in and say that your playing sounds awesome! Amazing what you have accomplished in this short time span.
How is the tension at this point? Has it gotten better? If so, what would you say was the cause of that?
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