Stratovarius - Stratosphere practice diary

[gabrielthorn]

Hello everyone!

I’ve had a few attempts in February to learn the intro of this song but I always felt like that my fretting hand can’t keep up with my picking even on 150 bpm, and on the original tempo (around 165 bpm) my picking was a mess too. Here’s a link to the video I posted back then.

Seeking for help with my picking technique

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. [stratosphere lick 150 bpm]

Yesterday I spent some time watching people who can actually play this and noticed something … I was curious and checked out the studio version, slowed down, and I just banged my head into the wall… The last note of each group on each position is not played, there’s a 16th note rest, always. I got excited, and gave it a try on the original tempo, didn’t care about going slower than that. It felt so much easier playing this way.

I’ve recorded an attempt this morning on the original tempo. Yes, it’s far from perfect, but at least I can feel how it is to play it on the original tempo and smooth out the rough edges.

Stratovarius - Stratosphere intro original tempo attempt

I’m using a backing track I’ve found on YouTube.

I’ve decided to learn the entire song, I’ll keep the topic updated once I’ve made any progress on this.

[tommo]

@gabrielthorn

I was curious and checked out the studio version, slowed down, and I just banged my head into the wall… The last note of each group on each position is not played, there’s a 16th note rest, always. I got excited, and gave it a try on the original tempo, didn’t care about going slower than that. It felt so much easier playing this way.

Great find, sounds like a much welcome rest! Where is it happening exactly?

[gabrielthorn]

I’m making a video shortly and explain where it happens. It’s funny because I have never noticed this on the recording until I slowed it down. It sounds like a fluent, non-stop run.

[gabrielthorn]

The lick, played slowly, with the rest at the end of each position.

Stratosphere lick

The picking pattern I’m using is the following, I’m pretty sure it’s not all picked, and I think it sounds better than my swiping attempts

[Hadalpelagiclife]

I think this a great post, you found something interesting, did a demonstration and put up tabs.
Well done !

[gabrielthorn]

Today I continued learning the song. This part is really nasty, I never liked single string lines, but it’s time to face this challenge I think. I was wondering how he plays this part as all the covers were approaching it in a different way.

A common version is playing everything in the 10th position starting on the B string but that would imply an upstroke string change for the higher registers which breaks the flow. An other version is that we play everything on the high E string, but that would imply a big jump with the left hand before starting the lick over again.

I checked some live footages and it was an other banging my head into the wall moment. It’s so clever… he’s starting on the high E string on the 5th fret and when it comes to the turnaround, he’s doing the same lick as he does in the beginning of the song on the E and B string which has an easy string shift (especially because he’s doing legato on the E string) and starts the same lick again but on the B string this time. So no nasty string shifts or big jumps with the fretting hand.

[tommo]

@gabrielthorn

I checked some live footages and it was an other banging my head into the wall moment. It’s so clever… he’s starting on the high E string on the 5th fret and when it comes to the turnaround, he’s doing the same lick as he does in the beginning of the song on the E and B string which has an easy string shift (especially because he’s doing legato on the E string) and starts the same lick again but on the B string this time. So no nasty string shifts or big jumps with the fretting hand.

Ha super cool, thanks for sharing! I now remembered that I noticed this back then… But then for some reason I went back to the silly version with the awkward position shifts. Maybe I was still in the silly guitaristic mindframe “you gotta do it the hard way” — which is precisely not what the Pros do

When I’ll try to play this again I have to revise this thread and make sure I use all the optimizations you found

[PickingApprentice]

Never actually listened to much Stratovarius (don’t know why). This is a cool track and you are playing it well! The intro will make a great addition to my ‘technique consolidation project’ (I say that as if its a thing! ), where I am trying to get way more consistent at the 150 - 170 bpm range (16ths).

[gabrielthorn]

I’m glad I can show anything useful to anyone here I think there aren’t any other tricky bits in the song, maybe the descending tremolo picked arpeggio, but it seems random and not in sync on any covers or the original studio recording either.