A Million Suns · Arch Enemy

154 bars at 160 BPM -- fast, and 3:51 of it without a break -- on crash, hi-hat, snare, high tom, mid tom, floor tom and kick.

MetalRock150 BPM and up
TEMPO
160 BPM
TIME
4/4
BARS
154
LENGTH
3:51
DIFFICULTY
65/100
THE BEAT

One bar, and 50% of the song

The beat the song is built on is one bar, played through bars 10-24, 26-33 and 46-54, and 8 more places -- 49.7% of every bar the kit plays. Learn that one and most of the song is already under your hands.

LOOP · 160 BPM
A MILLION SUNS · BAR 20
THE BEAT, WRITTEN OUT →
THE FILLS

Where it comes off the beat

15 fills to learn, played 25 times: bars 3, 5, 7, 9, 25, 40 and 19 more.

LOOP · 160 BPM
BAR 3 · LANDS ON BAR 4 · PLAYED 6 TIMES
LOOP · 160 BPM
BAR 25 · LANDS ON BAR 26
LOOP · 160 BPM
BARS 40-41 · LANDS ON BAR 42 · PLAYED 2 TIMES
LOOP · 160 BPM
BAR 61 · LANDS ON BAR 62 · PLAYED 2 TIMES

11 more fills are written out on the fills page.

EVERY FILL, WRITTEN OUT →
THE SHAPE

How the song is built

154 bars across 17 sections: 105 keep time, 25 are fills, 3 are stops and 5 are silent. The longest unbroken stretch of time is bars 11-24.

PART B
CHORUS
PART H
CHORUS 2
CHORUS 3
PART H
CHORUS 4
PART V
CHORUS 5
PART B
CHORUS 6
9 groovesFBHVR+4Fill into the next barFill that ends a sectionInto the next partStop / hitRest

Questions

What BPM is A Million Suns?

160 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 A Million Suns hard to play on drums?

65 out of 100: demanding, mostly on how many notes a second it asks for. The beat itself is 57 out of 100; the rest of the number is everything around it.

How long is the drum part?

154 bars, about 3:51 at the written tempo. The course breaks it into 48 exercises over 13 sittings, about 26 minutes each.

What do I need on the kit?

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

How many fills are in A Million Suns?

15 fills to learn, played 25 times: bars 3, 5, 7, 9, 25, 40 and 19 more.

READ OFF THE SCORE ITSELF · 154 BARS ANALYSED
MORE BY THIS BAND

Other Arch Enemy drum parts

EVERY ARCH ENEMY CHART →
AT THIS LEVEL

Play something else today

EVERY SONG A-Z →