Hi Steven!

As a guitar coach, I always recommend to have a good balance between focused practice of your fundamentals (picking, strumming, rhythm, and scales) and working on learning songs and building your repertoire. It's always a great idea to work with a metronome when you are practicing the fundamentals, since it will keep you honest about your sense of timing, and it is easier to track your progress.

As for No Matter What --- I'd play the main riff for the first verse/chorus cycle, then switch to the arpeggiated parts after that. The beauty of this song is that both parts sound great at any time in the arrangement, so you literally could just mix and match the parts as you see fit!!

Let me know how it goes!

Mike