A Broken Man · Dream Theater

288 bars of 5/4 -- not four -- at 195 BPM, 8:21 of playing on crash, ride, hi-hat, snare, high tom, mid tom, floor tom, kick and hi-hat foot.

RockProgressive150 BPM and upAdvanced
TEMPO
195 BPM
TIME
5/4
BARS
288
LENGTH
8:21
DIFFICULTY
47/100
THE BEAT

One bar, and 9% of the song

The beat the song is built on is one bar, played through bars 5-16, 61-63 and 65-66, and 1 more place -- 9% of every bar the kit plays. This one moves around more than most: the beat is where to start, not the whole job.

LOOP · 195 BPM
A BROKEN MAN · BAR 10
THE FILLS

Where it comes off the beat

28 fills to learn, played 57 times: bars 24, 43, 44, 47, 48, 52 and 51 more.

LOOP · 195 BPM
BAR 24 · LANDS ON BAR 25
LOOP · 195 BPM
BARS 43-44 · LANDS ON BAR 45 · PLAYED 4 TIMES
LOOP · 195 BPM
BARS 47-48 · LANDS ON BAR 49 · PLAYED 2 TIMES
LOOP · 195 BPM
BAR 52 · LANDS ON BAR 53 · PLAYED 2 TIMES

24 more fills are written out on the fills page.

THE SHAPE

How the song is built

288 bars across 26 sections: 124 keep time, 57 are fills, 1 is a stop and 78 are silent. The longest unbroken stretch of time is bars 6-16.

PART K
CHORUS
BREAK
21 groovesS26BEBACK+16Fill into the next barFill that ends a sectionInto the next partStop / hitRest

Questions

What BPM is A Broken Man?

195 BPM, in 5/4, 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 A Broken Man hard to play on drums?

47 out of 100, a step up from a first song, and the work is in the independence between the hands and the feet. The beat itself is 52 out of 100; the rest of the number is everything around it.

How long is the drum part?

288 bars, about 8:21 at the written tempo. The course breaks it into 109 exercises over 30 sittings, about 26 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 A Broken Man?

28 fills to learn, played 57 times: bars 24, 43, 44, 47, 48, 52 and 51 more.

READ OFF THE SCORE ITSELF · 288 BARS ANALYSED
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