← SONGS

2 Minutes To Midnight · Iron Maiden

EXERCISE 19 OF 103
Groove L
153 / 283 BARS COVERED
0 / 103 PASSED · 5 BARS LIT · IN THE PART J, CHORUS 2
PART J
CHORUS
PART J
CHORUS 2
CHORUS 3
PART J
CHORUS 4
PART U
16 groovesOJFUE+11Fill into the next barFill that ends a sectionInto the next partStop / hitRest
GROOVE · 25
FILL · 17
LAND · 17
RUN · 3
JOIN · 17
LINK · 12
SECTION · 11
WHOLE SONG · 1
ABOUT THIS DRUM PART

How to play 2 Minutes To Midnight on drums

283 bars at 186 BPM -- fast, and 6:05 of it without a break -- on crash, ride, hi-hat, snare, high tom, mid tom, floor tom, kick and hi-hat foot.

66 out of 100: demanding, mostly on the independence between the hands and the feet.

TEMPO
186 BPM
TIME
4/4
BARS
283
LENGTH
6:05
DIFFICULTY
66/100

silence through bars 1-3, toms through bars 4-5, silence through bars 6-7, toms through bars 8-9, silence through bars 10-11 and toms through bars 12-13, and 20 more changes after that.

The beat

The beat the song is built on is one bar, played through bars 42-43, 45-46 and 48, and 11 more places -- 20.4% of every bar the kit plays. This one moves around more than most: the beat is where to start, not the whole job.

    45
    1e+a2e+a3e+a4e+a
RD |x---x---x---x---|
SD |--------x-------|
BD |x---x-x-----x-x-|
2 Minutes To Midnight -- the groove · x hit · o open hi-hat · g ghost note · r cross-stick · X accent

The fills

17 fills to learn, played 38 times: bars 16, 23, 24, 40, 47, 54 and 32 more.

What the course does

It cuts the song into 85 exercises -- the grooves, the fills, and the joins between sections, which is where players actually come off -- and puts them in the order a teacher would. Each one opens on a reduction you can already play and adds the notes back a rung at a time, with a tempo to reach and a gate to pass before the next.

  1. The grooves the song is built on -- O -- 3 exercises, about 19 minutes.
  2. The grooves the song is built on -- E, U -- 2 exercises, about 30 minutes.
  3. Bars 4-10 -- 3 exercises, about 18 minutes.
  4. Through Part F -- 6 exercises, about 33 minutes.
  5. Through Part F and Part J -- 3 exercises, about 25 minutes.
  6. Through Part J -- 1 exercise, about 17 minutes.
  7. Through Part J and Part E -- 3 exercises, about 26 minutes. Open above.
  8. Bars 40-97 -- 5 exercises, about 29 minutes.
  9. and 18 more sittings after that.
START THE COURSE ↑

Questions

What BPM is 2 Minutes To Midnight?

186 BPM, in 4/4, with the time kept in sixteenth notes. At that speed the sixteenth notes are the whole difficulty, so the room will take it down to a quarter of it and climb back.

Is 2 Minutes To Midnight hard to play on drums?

66 out of 100: demanding, mostly on the independence between the hands and the feet. The beat itself is 40 out of 100; the rest of the number is everything around it.

How long is the drum part?

283 bars, about 6:05 at the written tempo. The course breaks it into 85 exercises over 26 sittings, about 25 minutes each.

What do I need on the kit?

crash, ride, hi-hat, snare, high tom, mid tom, floor tom, kick and hi-hat foot. That is most of a full kit; the part moves around it rather than sitting in one place.

How many fills are in 2 Minutes To Midnight?

17 fills to learn, played 38 times: bars 16, 23, 24, 40, 47, 54 and 32 more.

READ OFF THE SCORE ITSELF · 283 BARS ANALYSED