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Almost Easy (Drop D) · Avenged Sevenfold

EXERCISE 1 OF 64
Groove J -- Part J
0 / 155 BARS COVERED
0 / 64 PASSED · 19 BARS LIT · IN THE PART J, PART W
PART A
CHORUS
PART J
PART L
CHORUS 2
PART J
PART L
PART P
PART R
PART T
PART W
PART J
OUTRO
BREAK
10 groovesGLJDS16+5Fill into the next barFill that ends a sectionInto the next partStop / hitRest
GROOVE · 11
FILL · 12
LAND · 12
RUN · 4
JOIN · 12
LINK · 7
SECTION · 5
WHOLE SONG · 1
ABOUT THIS DRUM PART

How to play Almost Easy (Drop D) on drums

155 bars at 175 BPM -- fast, and 3:51 of it without a break -- on crash, ride, hi-hat, snare, high tom, mid tom, floor tom, kick and hi-hat foot.

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

TEMPO
175 BPM
TIME
4/4
BARS
155
LENGTH
3:51
DIFFICULTY
54/100

snare through bars 1-8, hi-hat through bars 9-16, ride through bars 17-23, snare through bars 24-28, ride through bars 29-32 and snare through bars 33-48, and 11 more changes after that.

The beat

The beat the song is built on is one bar, played through bars 33-39, 65-71 and 124-127, and 1 more place -- 13.4% of every bar the kit plays. This one moves around more than most: the beat is where to start, not the whole job.

    35
    1e+a2e+a3e+a4e+a
CC |x---x---x---x---|
SD |x---x---x---x---|
BD |--x---x---x---x-|
Almost Easy (Drop D) -- the groove · x hit · o open hi-hat · g ghost note · r cross-stick · X accent

The fills

12 fills to learn, played 33 times: bars 8, 16, 20, 24, 28, 32 and 27 more.

What the course does

It cuts the song into 51 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 -- J, D -- 2 exercises, about 21 minutes.
  2. The grooves the song is built on -- G -- 6 exercises, about 28 minutes.
  3. Through Part A -- 5 exercises, about 29 minutes.
  4. Through Part A and Part D -- 3 exercises, about 27 minutes.
  5. Bars 15-36 -- 6 exercises, about 24 minutes.
  6. Through Part J and Part L -- 6 exercises, about 27 minutes.
  7. Bars 45-81 -- 5 exercises, about 28 minutes.
  8. Bars 77-90 -- 4 exercises, about 19 minutes.
  9. and 6 more sittings after that.
START THE COURSE ↑

Questions

What BPM is Almost Easy (Drop D)?

175 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 Almost Easy (Drop D) hard to play on drums?

54 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 31 out of 100; the rest of the number is everything around it.

How long is the drum part?

155 bars, about 3:51 at the written tempo. The course breaks it into 51 exercises over 14 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 Almost Easy (Drop D)?

12 fills to learn, played 33 times: bars 8, 16, 20, 24, 28, 32 and 27 more.

READ OFF THE SCORE ITSELF · 155 BARS ANALYSED