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A Million Suns · Arch Enemy

EXERCISE 7 OF 64
Groove H -- Part H
93 / 154 BARS COVERED
0 / 64 PASSED · 12 BARS LIT · IN THE PART H
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
GROOVE · 8
FILL · 15
LAND · 15
RUN · 2
JOIN · 11
LINK · 6
SECTION · 6
WHOLE SONG · 1
ABOUT THIS DRUM PART

How to play A Million Suns on drums

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.

65 out of 100: demanding, mostly on how many notes a second it asks for.

TEMPO
160 BPM
TIME
4/4
BARS
154
LENGTH
3:51
DIFFICULTY
65/100

snare through bars 2-9, hi-hat through bars 10-17, snare through bars 18-19, hi-hat through bars 20-53, snare through bars 54-55 and hi-hat through bars 56-122, and 4 more changes after that.

The beat

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.

    20
    1e+a2e+a3e+a4e+a
CC |x---------------|
HH |----o---o---o---|
SD |x---x---x---x---|
BD |xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx|
A Million Suns -- the groove · x hit · o open hi-hat · g ghost note · r cross-stick · X accent

The fills

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

What the course does

It cuts the song into 48 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 -- F -- 2 exercises, about 21 minutes.
  2. The grooves the song is built on -- B -- 4 exercises, about 24 minutes.
  3. The grooves the song is built on -- H -- 5 exercises, about 29 minutes. Open above.
  4. Bars 38-49 -- 7 exercises, about 30 minutes.
  5. Through the Chorus 2 and Part K -- 2 exercises, about 29 minutes.
  6. Bars 54-70 -- 7 exercises, about 27 minutes.
  7. Through Part H and Part R -- 4 exercises, about 26 minutes.
  8. Bars 77-93 -- 8 exercises, about 30 minutes.
  9. and 5 more sittings after that.
START THE COURSE ↑

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