Ashes To Ashes · Blind Guardian

249 bars at 200 BPM -- fast, and 4:59 of it without a break -- on crash, hi-hat, snare, high tom, mid tom, floor tom, kick and hi-hat foot.

MetalRock150 BPM and up
TEMPO
200 BPM
TIME
4/4
BARS
249
LENGTH
4:59
DIFFICULTY
57/100
THE BEAT

One bar, and 36% of the song

The beat the song is built on is one bar, played through bars 15-18, 31-37 and 51-53, and 16 more places -- 35.6% of every bar the kit plays. Learn that one and most of the song is already under your hands.

LOOP · 200 BPM
ASHES TO ASHES · BAR 31
THE BEAT, WRITTEN OUT →
THE FILLS

Where it comes off the beat

3 fills to learn, played 3 times: bars 117, 177 and 189.

LOOP · 200 BPM
BAR 117 · LANDS ON BAR 118
LOOP · 200 BPM
BAR 177 · LANDS ON BAR 178
LOOP · 200 BPM
BAR 189 · LANDS ON BAR 190
EVERY FILL, WRITTEN OUT →
THE SHAPE

How the song is built

249 bars across 27 sections: 189 keep time, 4 are fills, 16 are stops and 2 are silent. The longest unbroken stretch of time is bars 100-115.

PART J
CHORUS 3
CHORUS 5
CHORUS 7
CHORUS 8
CHORUS 9
8 groovesFCJAN+3Fill into the next barFill that ends a sectionInto the next partStop / hitRest

Questions

What BPM is Ashes To Ashes?

200 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 Ashes To Ashes hard to play on drums?

57 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 55 out of 100; the rest of the number is everything around it.

How long is the drum part?

249 bars, about 4:59 at the written tempo. The course breaks it into 47 exercises over 12 sittings, about 29 minutes each.

What do I need on the kit?

crash, 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 Ashes To Ashes?

3 fills to learn, played 3 times: bars 117, 177 and 189.

READ OFF THE SCORE ITSELF · 249 BARS ANALYSED
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