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A Song For The Optimists · Atreyu

EXERCISE 24 OF 63
Groove I
95 / 187 BARS COVERED
0 / 63 PASSED · 3 BARS LIT · IN THE PART G
PART E
PART G
PART N
PART X
CHORUS
PART B
PART G
14 groovesUNGEX+9Fill into the next barFill that ends a sectionInto the next partStop / hitRest
GROOVE · 17
FILL · 8
LAND · 8
RUN · 1
JOIN · 12
LINK · 6
SECTION · 10
WHOLE SONG · 1
ABOUT THIS DRUM PART

How to play A Song For The Optimists on drums

187 bars at 165 BPM -- fast, and 4:38 of it without a break -- on crash, ride, hi-hat, snare, high tom, mid tom, floor tom, kick and hi-hat foot.

61 out of 100, a step up from a first song, and the work is in the independence between the hands and the feet.

TEMPO
165 BPM
TIME
4/4
BARS
187
LENGTH
4:38
DIFFICULTY
61/100

silence through bars 1-4, hi-hat through bars 5-12, toms through bars 13-19, snare through bars 20-36, ride through bars 37-54 and hi-hat through bars 55-70, and 12 more changes after that.

The beat

The beat the song is built on is one bar, played through bars 77, 85 and 107-122, and 4 more places -- 14.8% of every bar the kit plays. This one moves around more than most: the beat is where to start, not the whole job.

    107
    1...........2...........3...........4...........
CC |x-----------x-----------x-----------x-----------|
SD |------------x-----------------------x-----------|
BD |x-----------------------x-----x-----------x-----|
A Song For The Optimists -- the groove · x hit · o open hi-hat · g ghost note · r cross-stick · X accent

The fills

8 fills to learn, played 16 times: bars 20, 28, 36, 44, 53, 54 and 10 more.

What the course does

It cuts the song into 54 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 -- U, B -- 4 exercises, about 28 minutes.
  2. The grooves the song is built on -- E -- 4 exercises, about 29 minutes.
  3. Through Part C and Part E -- 4 exercises, about 28 minutes.
  4. Bars 11-29 -- 5 exercises, about 23 minutes.
  5. Through Part E and Part G -- 2 exercises, about 18 minutes.
  6. Through Part E and Part G -- 4 exercises, about 25 minutes.
  7. Through Part E and Part G -- 2 exercises, about 19 minutes. Open above.
  8. Through Part G and Part H -- 3 exercises, about 27 minutes.
  9. and 11 more sittings after that.
START THE COURSE ↑

Questions

What BPM is A Song For The Optimists?

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

Is A Song For The Optimists hard to play on drums?

61 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 43 out of 100; the rest of the number is everything around it.

How long is the drum part?

187 bars, about 4:38 at the written tempo. The course breaks it into 54 exercises over 19 sittings, about 23 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 Song For The Optimists?

8 fills to learn, played 16 times: bars 20, 28, 36, 44, 53, 54 and 10 more.

READ OFF THE SCORE ITSELF · 187 BARS ANALYSED