I've been casually playing for a while. Recently I joined GT and I am studying some of the lessons in here including "Intro to Improvisation." It is an increible course (learning a lot.) As part of the course, you play along and target chords, etc. To put some of it into practice, I mixed it up and tried playing along with one of my all time favorite tunes. To see what I am refering to, it's on YT and the title is Steve Stine Jamming to "Just Got Paid" by ZZ Top/Joe Bonamassa.

He makes it look so easy and super smooth. He doesn't break a sweat and he does not miss a single note during the entire tune which is amazing...so I thought I could give it a shot. I watched the video several times and identified some of the main chords and the main riff. When I play my own, very rough "improvised" version, it sounds decent- or so I thought. I then made the tragic mistake of using a drum track (not even the more technical backing track) at the correct 117BPM- and it fell apart badly. I realized quickly that something is way off. I either struggle badly with playing in time, playing in sync, both, and/or my technical skills are lacking to a point where I can't play in time. Maybe I am missing certain fundementals that e.g., tab doesn't teach. Ironically, I can play along with many other, more simple melodies e.g., blues and rock where I am mostly strumming chords or playing a few simple riffs (easy to tap your foot to and do not require exact timing- easy to fake and forgiving.)

There is something far more technical going on in this tune. You can hear in the video, it requires you to play a sequence of notes in time. It is brutally unforgiving. My riffs are just improvised so they change each time I play it. That might have something to do with it too. Basically, I get lost quickly but the musical train keeps rolling and I am left far behind with no way to catch up. Maybe I have to break down each piece of the song one measure at a time. That just seems like it would take forever and still might not help me. I don't know what I am missing.

Is playing in time and in sync something others struggle with too? Are there any lessons in here, or techniques to help me work on this? I'm not sure if I am missing counts in my head, or if I need to slow down and work through each bar (truly learn the song) before trying to wing it. Winging it works for many, many songs- not this one.

A big issue is that at several parts of this tune, you must be 100% spot on. There are very specific licks, riffs and drum fills that need to happen perfectly in sync (e.g., listen at 0:10 in.) You really can't just fake the song too much if you are playing with the actual track. It's just not forgiving like many other tunes like simple 12-bar blues. I can fake those all day long and even if I go slightly out of sync, each new mesaure is like a new day and I can jump back in. I would compare this tune to something like a musical where scenes are very tightly synced with the score. I guess it's more like playing actual musical correctly vs. the more common freeplay jam. Being a more technical piece, I guess the bottom line is that it is currently far beyond my current capabilities. I just really like it so I gave it a shot. At first it was a lot of fun (playing alone.) I felt confident and others commented that it sounded really good- but again, it got quite discouraging when I could even come close to keeping up with the actual song.

Any suggestions or advice would be much appreciated.

Thanks!