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Alpha · Periphery

EXERCISE 10 OF 104
Groove G
65 / 201 BARS COVERED
0 / 104 PASSED · 2 BARS LIT · IN THE PART E
PART E
CHORUS
PART P
PART E
CHORUS 2
PART H
PART AC
PART AG
PART AW
OUTRO 2
16 groovesIACTEH+11Fill into the next barFill that ends a sectionInto the next partStop / hitRest
GROOVE · 21
FILL · 22
LAND · 22
RUN · 4
JOIN · 17
LINK · 5
SECTION · 12
WHOLE SONG · 1
ABOUT THIS DRUM PART

How to play Alpha on drums

201 bars at 165 BPM -- fast, and 5:09 of it without a break -- on crash, ride, hi-hat, snare, high tom, mid tom, floor tom, kick and hi-hat foot.

52 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
201
LENGTH
5:09
DIFFICULTY
52/100

silence through bars 1-7, snare through bars 8-12, hi-hat through bars 13-17, snare through bars 18-38, hi-hat through bars 39-46 and snare through bars 47-50, and 14 more changes after that.

The beat

The beat the song is built on is one bar, played through bars 39-41, 43-45 and 77-79, and 10 more places -- 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.

    39
    1e+a2e+a3e+a4e+a
CC |x---------------|
HH |----o---o---o---|
SD |--------x-------|
BD |x-----x-------x-|
Alpha -- the groove · x hit · o open hi-hat · g ghost note · r cross-stick · X accent

The fills

22 fills to learn, played 33 times: bars 13, 24, 32, 35, 38, 46 and 27 more.

What the course does

It cuts the song into 81 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 -- T, I -- 2 exercises, about 23 minutes.
  2. The grooves the song is built on -- U -- 2 exercises, about 25 minutes.
  3. Through Part E -- 5 exercises, about 37 minutes.
  4. Through Part E and the Chorus -- 3 exercises, about 28 minutes. Open above.
  5. Bars 13-71 -- 4 exercises, about 21 minutes.
  6. Through the Chorus -- 4 exercises, about 28 minutes.
  7. Through the Chorus and Part P -- 6 exercises, about 30 minutes.
  8. Bars 30-48 -- 9 exercises, about 30 minutes.
  9. and 13 more sittings after that.
START THE COURSE ↑

Questions

What BPM is Alpha?

165 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 Alpha hard to play on drums?

52 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 33 out of 100; the rest of the number is everything around it.

How long is the drum part?

201 bars, about 5:09 at the written tempo. The course breaks it into 81 exercises over 21 sittings, about 27 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 Alpha?

22 fills to learn, played 33 times: bars 13, 24, 32, 35, 38, 46 and 27 more.

READ OFF THE SCORE ITSELF · 201 BARS ANALYSED