Answering the Call · Dream Theater

265 bars of 4/4 at 142 BPM, about 7:25 of playing, on crash, ride, hi-hat, snare, high tom, mid tom, floor tom, kick and hi-hat foot.

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

TEMPO

142 BPM

TIME

4/4

BARS

265

LENGTH

7:25

DIFFICULTY

57/100

hi-hat through bars 1-18, snare through bars 19-32, toms through bars 33-34, hi-hat through bars 35-40, silence through bars 41-78 and hi-hat through bars 79-93, and 16 more changes after that.

The beat the song is built on is one bar, played through bars 19, 21 and 23, and 21 more places -- 11.5% of every bar the kit plays. This one moves around more than most: the beat is where to start, not the whole job.

    19
    1e+a2e+a3e+a4e+a
CC |x---x---x---x---|
SD |--------x-------|
BD |x---x---------x-|

30 fills to learn, played 124 times: bars 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16 and 118 more.

It cuts the song into 76 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 -- L, M -- 2 exercises, about 21 minutes. Open above.
2. The grooves the song is built on -- BS -- 3 exercises, about 18 minutes.
3. Through Part D -- 3 exercises, about 33 minutes.
4. Through Part D and the Chorus -- 5 exercises, about 28 minutes.
5. Through the Chorus and Part O -- 7 exercises, about 32 minutes.
6. Through Part O -- 4 exercises, about 29 minutes.
7. Bars 39-81 -- 5 exercises, about 27 minutes.
8. Through the Break 2 and the Chorus 2 -- 6 exercises, about 28 minutes.
9. and 15 more sittings after that.