Serafin -- Thanks for the time on the detailed answer.

Double A is your 'go to note'? Sheesh... at my peak the A was a 50/50 proposition in a show!

Tonight, however, things were working better in practice for me again. Reminder, I didn't play for over 8 years, and have been practicing on and off now for about 5 months. High Eb was crystal clear and easy to control, arpeggios are getting cleaner from Low G through E over high C, and I was able to play along with 'Good Medicine' (Doc) about 4 times in a row before my chops were blown to bits. This thread, however, had me thinking about my left hand position too much... and almost made it so I couldn't "just play"... so I threw in the smaller mpc and tried to blow along with "Hey Jude"... that finished me off pretty fast...