At Last
The problem with being sick when you have an Eli 5.6 around is that it's hard to get enough rest. You can't just sleep in and stay in bed all day. So I was dragging around on Saturday, feeling poorly and really tired, and while Eli and Gloria were making a papier mache mask of the Lion King (long story), I decided to play a little Guitar Hero.I've been practicing Laid to Rest for SIX WEEK. The entire song is basically hammer-ons and pull-offs.
[actually, because I'm crazy, I counted the possible HO/PO in the song. Out of 1268 notes, in the song, 872 can be HO/PO. That's over 68%, or more than two-thirds of the song.]
There are more HO/PO opportunities in that one song than there are in some sets of five songs. I was doing fine on the solo, which is 192 notes that can all be HO/PO, but there's also a section called "Melody" which is another 98 notes of HO/PO or so, and that had been absolutely killing me. It's early in the song and also right at the end, and I could play it fine on one speed below normal--but no higher.
This song basically taught me how to do hammer-ons/pull-offs correctly (although maybe not terribly well), and I didn't want to hack through the song without them. So I kept playing and failing and failing and failing.
Yesterday, though, while I was feeling awful and my hands felt as nimble as cinder blocks, I passed the song. Not by much--I was flashing red at the end--but no matter.
That felt good, but then I took a look at Psychobilly Freakout. It looked hard, but it didn't look as hard to me as Laid to Rest. And it wasn't because I passed it on the fourth try. And then I passed YYZ on the fourth try.
So as unlikely as it seems, I made it to the final set. And I've taken a look at Beast and the Harlot, and it's nowhere near as hard as Laid to Rest. I should pass it without drama.
[Update: and I did. On to Institutionalized, which looks really, really nasty.]
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