ABOUT THIS DRUM PART

How to play Altitudes on drums

140 bars, 10:22, at 52 BPM: slow enough that every note is exposed. Crash, ride, hi-hat, snare, high tom, mid tom, floor tom, kick and hi-hat foot and nothing else.

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: 52 BPM
TIME: 4/4
BARS: 140
LENGTH: 10:22
DIFFICULTY: 54/100

silence through bars 1-12, snare through bars 13-19, toms through bars 20-22, hi-hat through bars 23-38, ride through bars 39-54 and hi-hat through bars 55-58, and 11 more changes after that.

The beat

The beat the song is built on is one bar, played through bars 23-29, 31-35 and 57, and 12 more places -- 25.6% of every bar the kit plays. That is the spine of it; everything else is what happens around it.

    27
    1...........2...........3...........4...........
CC |x-----------------------------------------------|
HH |------------o-----------o-----------o-----------|
SD |------------------------x-----------------------|
BD |x-----------------x-----------------------x-----|

Altitudes -- the groove · x hit · o open hi-hat · g ghost note · r cross-stick · X accent

The fills

22 fills to learn, played 37 times: bars 12, 16, 20, 21, 22, 37 and 31 more.

What the course does

It cuts the song into 56 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.

The grooves the song is built on -- H, AE -- 3 exercises, about 30 minutes.
The grooves the song is built on -- C -- 6 exercises, about 32 minutes.
Bars 12-27 -- 7 exercises, about 30 minutes. Open above.
Through the Chorus -- 4 exercises, about 31 minutes.
Through the Chorus -- 3 exercises, about 18 minutes.
Through the Chorus and Part P -- 5 exercises, about 27 minutes.
Through the Chorus and Part P -- 4 exercises, about 18 minutes.
Through Part P and the Chorus 2 -- 6 exercises, about 32 minutes.
and 6 more sittings after that.

START THE COURSE ↑

Questions

What BPM is Altitudes?

52 BPM, in 4/4, with the time kept in thirty-second notes. Slow enough to hear every mistake, which is why the room lets you sit at the written tempo rather than under it.

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

How long is the drum part?

140 bars, about 10:22 at the written tempo. The course breaks it into 56 exercises over 14 sittings, about 28 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 Altitudes?

22 fills to learn, played 37 times: bars 12, 16, 20, 21, 22, 37 and 31 more.

READ OFF THE SCORE ITSELF · 140 BARS ANALYSED