I would like to know why you’re choosing some of the hardest songs to play for the solos. There are tons of A7X songs that are incredible and the solos are a bit more obtainable. First of all, I should REALLY say congratulations on placing second!
I agree with everyone here: There is no quick solution, and ‘dumbing down’ a solo may be in order. I ALWAYS like to tell people to push their boundaries and to go for the big goal and don’t settle for anything less than what you want. But with HTTK, I knew the solo was for the most part obtainable with just some spots that would need work. It was a big goal, but a practical one that would still take hard work. I’m not trying to undermine your abilities, but July is 3 months away. It took me 2.5 months of HOURS a day practicing the HTTK solo to get it up to speed, standing up, and ready for a show. And even then, it wasn’t entirely acceptable technique. I literally spent almost 4 hours a day on that solo. And that’s like a super beginner’s solo if you compare it to the likes of Afterlife. I would hate for you to stress yourself out. But hell, the coolest thing is getting up their with a big dream, and doing your absolute best! Because whether or not you bomb the whole solo, you made a goal and you went for it! And THAT is a BIG payoff. You definitely don’t want to go up there wishing you would have done something different. So right here is where you should probably choose your route:
Do you want to play it safe or do you want to dream big? There’s pros and cons for each.
But you do you, my man. If this is something you REALLY want to do, I’ll tell you a practice secret that helped me for my HTTK sweeps: It’s to practice the arpeggio positions in the CAGED lessons by using sweep picking. It’s fucking HARD. And you get 6-string sweeps and you have slides that are randomly thrown in there. By the time I got those up to speed with 16th notes on the backing track, the HTTK sweeps were like nothing. I OVER-challenged myself by playing something harder, and the ‘hard stuff’ became easier.
******PLEASE NOTE!!!!******
Afterlife’s tempo is 110BPM, not 120. So you’re already an over-achiever, haha! It goes in and out of a double-time feel. But don’t set your metronome any higher than 110. You have to practice going in and out of each feel and being able to get that feeling right.
Practice your 32nd notes, triplets and sixlets!!! This is the ‘shreddy’ part. A sixlet and a triplet are almost the same thing except for where the accents are. So when you’re practicing with a metronome, make sure you know where the accent count is so you can get the timing right of the ‘shreddy’ measure section.
My practice technique for the HTTK sweeps was to play them boringly slow. I would practice at a certain BPM for ten minutes and then increase the BPM by only ONE. But in less than an hour, it was so easy I improved by 30 BPMs instead of 3. For sweeping, watch how you angle your pick and how you move your pick-gripping fingers. It plays a huge part in the smoothness of how you ‘rake’ across the strings. Dig into the strings a little bit so that it’s clear. Keep us up to date on your progress and good luck! I hope this helped a little.