Hey Mike,

Picking this thread up again in relation to the guitar solo (and especially the c major run I talked about earlier in the first solo.)

I can do it ok now with the slow playthrough in the lesson, so progress, but still some way to go to get to full tempo. (I'm doing plenty of fast alternate picking exercises as well, since that's pretty much a pre-req).

Question - do you have any particular mental approach to parts like this? Reason I ask is because I'm becoming aware of a common mental block I have with difficult songs. I'll know that there is a certain part of a song I have problems with, and this results in me mentally anticipating that part a bar or 2 before. End result is that I lose concentration, lose the 'feel' for the song and tighten up phyisically.

(And then, things get progresively worse if I'm playing along to the backing track, becasue then it's really obvious if you lose time, which seems to increase the pressure to do it right).

Obviously, this tension is all counterproductive, but even being aware of the problem, I'm having a hard time countering it. Is this another thing to break through via practise and grandually increasing speed, or are there alternative approaches? I'm guesing I'm not the only one to encounter this....

Thanks,

Chris