Wonderful song Ryan! You’re nailing the vibe on both rhythm & lead! Great job, especially when factoring in the length of time you’ve been playing! Wow! Keep going, man!
Thanks for sharing!!!
Tod
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Very well done mate.
There’s alot in this tune, as you know.
And 6 minutes of just the barre chords is a feat in itself, let alone all the fills, and the solo etc.
Sure there’s some flubs, timing issues etc, but its the same for all of us; as you progress, they will progressively lower.
I tackled this tune a few years ago, and your post has rekindled my interest, so thanks.
For a deep dive into the structure, think Dm pentatonic and arpeggios as the overall framework. Looking forward to hearing more. All the best.
Cheers, Shane
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Thanks everyone!!
@sclay indeed, it’s funny that you mention the barre chords. When I first started working on this song I couldn’t get through the first minute and 30 seconds or so before my hand would start cramping up, but every day I was able to push it a few seconds more. It’s still a heck of a challenge especially towards the end during the second solo on, when it’s the same progression of barre chords with sliding involved over and over. You can see my face at the end of the rhythm portion breathe a sigh of relief that it’s over, haha.
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Incredible skills, Ryan. I loved the Solo towards the end. You sounded great!
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Congrats Ryan, this is quite a milestone achievement! It always helps to really like a song to get through all the practise hours 
Where do you go from here - which songs is next?
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Absolutely amazing. I wish I could find 3-7 hours time in a day just for guitar. Your practice has really paid off, but I doubt many people would get to that level in 6 months even with 7 hours practice. Your dedication is amazing.
I really enjoyed that. Thanks.
P.s. I’m guessing you spend quite some time every day lifting weights too!!!
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That was awesome and such a cool song to be able to play. You clearly did a tonne of practice and you’re only gonna get better. Amazing. Thanks for sharing! Susan
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Ryan, I really enjoyed your cover and how well your spilt screens showing rhythm and lead were presented in the video.
I’m curious, are you playing through the positive grid spark 40 amp that I believe I see in the background? I almost exclusively play through my spark 40 -with or without headphones- trying to mimic the sound of the original recording.
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Thanks again so much everyone!
@MollyT , that’s a good question I’ve been trying to figure out. I’m thinking the next song I’ll try doing a complete guitar cover over is Carry on Wayward Son by Kansas - it’s not quite as difficult but it does have significantly more layers of guitars to include, so it would still be a good challenge. As for an individual song, I’ve been working a lot on rhythm / lead fills as a technique in general so my next challenge song is Hey Joe by Jimi Hendrix, the way he plays it with all the flair and embellishments. It’s going to take a little while for sure but it’s so much fun to play through. The solo isn’t too hard either, but his phrasing and tone are definitely hard to replicate. I think it would be a good challenge to try and make it my own somehow.
@Prof_Thunder thank you! It does seem like a pretty absurd amount of practice in a day, but I can usually fit about 30 minutes in before work, 30 minutes around lunch, 30-60 mins right after work, and then once the kids are ready for bed around 8:30 I’ll play from then until around 1am so that’s 4 and a half hours right there. Honestly I’m probably not sleeping as much as I should, but that’s nothing new. Before I would have just played video games until 1am instead, for some reason I’m most awake during the late hours. As for the gym, I only go 5 days a week for about 45 minutes at a time and it’s only 8 minutes down the road, so about 5 hours a week. Working out was my “hobby” before guitar but there’s definitely a wall with weight lifting where putting in more hours does nothing but wear you out more with no progress, it’s more a result of years and years of consistency. It did however teach me a lot of valuable lessons related to guitar, like the value of consistency and discipline, and to keep challenging yourself when your previous challenges become easy.
@gmsm thanks so much! I actually recorded this through my Boss Katana Gen 3 50w. Justin actually has a Sultans of Swing patch for this amp here that I used as a starting point for the tone, but the reason I used the Boss Katana is because it can feed a dry signal and serve as an interface to your computer. I recorded with the dry signal (no effects) into Logic Pro and used the ToneHub plugin to give it a specific clean tone with a little twang, basically emulating a 1972 Fender Twin Reverb. ToneHub is basically a profiler plugin, sort of similar to how Justin uses the Kemper Profiler for a lot of his recordings. Artists, community members (and ToneHub themselves) have a huge database in the plugin of recorded tones from various equipment sets. I don’t think this route specifically was necessary to get a good tone for the song, but in my experience using plugins on a dry signal in the DAW results in a better recording than recording the wet signal (with effects and amplification) straight from the amp.
I do like the Spark 2 quite a bit for quick practice, the tone cloud, and the built-in looper, and some of its effects are quite nice. The Boss Katana seems to have a lot more options and customizability to its effects. This song however is pretty limited in terms of having a crazy tone, it’s pretty much just a clean tone with reverb and a little gain - so it shouldn’t be too hard to set your own similar tone. I saw a Dire Straits tone in the tonecloud that worked well in the app but it had way too much reverb and bass if I remember correctly. I did some research and the trick for fingerpicking on electric like Mark Knopfler does seems to rely a bit on having a lot of gain and volume, and using your fingers dynamically as the method of volume control.
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I certainly agree with that. I did rowing competitively as a sport for 15 years in the UK which consisted of daily weight /fitness training as well as hours of rowing with the crew and then I did some years of karate in the US. It does help a lot with being disciplined about things regarding organising your life to fit everything in during the 24 hours of the day and to do it effectively. The only time I was not able to do that was when I used to have to put my small kids to bed. I usually fell asleep when I was doing that and then it was difficult to get motivated to do something else when I woke up! Now they are big and I use that time for guitar practice. 
Anyway I’m really impressed by your dedication and the skills you have learnt on the guitar. I liked the Sultans of Swing video a lot and you really got that Mark Knopfler sound nicely, which I have definitely not managed to get on my Strat. The tone is great.
Keep posting the videos!!!
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You nailed both parts on that one. Congratulations
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Playing 6 months…wtf😂 I’ve thought about learning this song but even just memorising all the licks puts me off. Great job.
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