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Atomic Punk · Van Halen

EXERCISE 22 OF 28
Run A2 · Part A (bars 86-94)
101 / 135 BARS COVERED
0 / 28 PASSED · 9 BARS LIT · IN THE PART A
PART A
CHORUS
CHORUS 2
PART K
PART A
OUTRO
OUTRO 2
5 groovesCAIKHFill into the next barFill that ends a sectionInto the next partStop / hitRest
GROOVE · 9
FILL · 2
LAND · 2
RUN · 1
JOIN · 6
LINK · 2
SECTION · 5
WHOLE SONG · 1
ABOUT THIS DRUM PART

How to play Atomic Punk on drums

135 bars at 216 BPM -- fast, and 2:30 of it without a break -- on crash, ride, hi-hat, snare, mid tom, floor tom, kick and hi-hat foot.

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

TEMPO
216 BPM
TIME
4/4
BARS
135
LENGTH
2:30
DIFFICULTY
62/100

ride through bars 1-16, hi-hat through bars 17-44, snare through bars 45-48, hi-hat through bars 49-54, snare through bars 55-56 and hi-hat through bars 57-78, and 4 more changes after that.

The beat

The beat the song is built on is a 2-bar phrase, played through bars 17-25, 27 and 29-33, and 9 more places -- 48.9% of every bar the kit plays. Learn that one and most of the song is already under your hands.

    17               18
    1e+a2e+a3e+a4e+a 1e+a2e+a3e+a4e+a
CC |x---------------|--------x---x---|
HH |----o---o---o---|o---o-----------|
SD |----x-------x---|----x-----------|
BD |x-----x---x-----|x-x-----x---x---|
Atomic Punk -- the groove · x hit · o open hi-hat · g ghost note · r cross-stick · X accent

The fills

2 fills to learn, played 8 times: bars 16, 36, 44, 45, 46, 126 and 2 more.

What the course does

It cuts the song into 25 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 -- C, K -- 3 exercises, about 30 minutes.
  2. The grooves the song is built on -- I -- 3 exercises, about 20 minutes.
  3. Through the Chorus -- 2 exercises, about 26 minutes.
  4. Through the Chorus and Part H -- 2 exercises, about 22 minutes.
  5. Through Part H and the Chorus 2 -- 3 exercises, about 27 minutes.
  6. Through Part H and the Chorus 2 -- 4 exercises, about 28 minutes.
  7. Bars 77-86 -- 4 exercises, about 27 minutes.
  8. Bars 86-135 -- 6 exercises, about 28 minutes. Open above.
  9. and 1 more sittings after that.
START THE COURSE ↑

Questions

What BPM is Atomic Punk?

216 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 Atomic Punk hard to play on drums?

62 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 42 out of 100; the rest of the number is everything around it.

How long is the drum part?

135 bars, about 2:30 at the written tempo. The course breaks it into 25 exercises over 9 sittings, about 24 minutes each.

What do I need on the kit?

crash, ride, hi-hat, snare, 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 Atomic Punk?

2 fills to learn, played 8 times: bars 16, 36, 44, 45, 46, 126 and 2 more.

READ OFF THE SCORE ITSELF · 135 BARS ANALYSED