@Ids I literally laughed at “I’m not sure where I was going with this metaphor but…”
@matt, my dearest friend. This situation you’re in is actually 100000000000000000000% normal. You’re a human, not a machine, and so there are definitely going to be some better days than others. Your situation is the reason why I STILL practice Hail To The King everyday. I’m still not comfortable with it. The sweeps are still at a spot where I’m “lucky” if I land them, and I don’t like it. Believe it or not, I too have slowed that solo back down to 60% speed so I could play it standing up and really practice those sweeps. To be honest though? 5BPM is WAY too fast of an incline each time. Everyone suggests that. But it’s completely detrimental. The reason why, is that your technique and muscle work will change with each increasing or even DECREASING tempo. For example, when I play the tremolo part in Nightmare, I use my whole rhythm hand forearm to do it when it’s at 80% speed. However, at 83% speed it becomes too taxing to use this method and I resort to just moving my wrist. Each tempo feels entirely different, even if it’s just 1 BPM faster or slower. What I did with Hail and Nightmare and even my own solos, is that I would practice each solo at one BPM for literally 30 minutes straight. To where you’re actually annoyed with it. Then the next day I’d increase the tempo only by ONE. You need to let your muscles get use to it. It’s like working out (I always use this example). You wouldn’t work out for 2 hours and constantly increase your bench press by 5 pounds every time you do 10 reps right at your current weight. That’s too much on the body at once, you need to allow your muscles time to rest. Or next thing you know, as a weightlifter you can’t lift your arms the next day, or as a guitarist you can’t play as well as you could the previous day because your playing muscles are stressed. Believe it or not, by this method in three days i was able to increase the tempo by 25 BPM solidly! My Nightmare videos totally prove it!
So perhaps you could try this method. I wish you luck! That entire song is nuts with arpeggios and the solos are definitely weird.