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Better Than Drugs · Skillet

EXERCISE 33 OF 45
Fill at bar 119
140 / 171 BARS COVERED
0 / 45 PASSED · 1 BAR LIT · IN THE PART I
PART S2
PART F
CHORUS
PART M
PART F
CHORUS 2
PART I
PART S15
OUTRO
OUTRO 2
11 groovesJFHIM+6Fill into the next barFill that ends a sectionInto the next partStop / hitRest
GROOVE · 7
FILL · 5
LAND · 5
RUN · 3
JOIN · 11
LINK · 5
SECTION · 8
WHOLE SONG · 1
ABOUT THIS DRUM PART

How to play Better Than Drugs on drums

171 bars at 176 BPM -- fast, and 3:53 of it without a break -- on crash, hi-hat, snare, high tom, mid tom, floor tom and kick.

44 out of 100 -- a fair first song -- with the independence between the hands and the feet the part that decides it.

TEMPO
176 BPM
TIME
4/4
BARS
171
LENGTH
3:53
DIFFICULTY
44/100

hi-hat through bars 3-4, snare through bars 5-12, silence through bars 13-16, snare through bars 17-28, hi-hat through bars 29-36 and toms through bars 37-38, and 23 more changes after that.

The beat

The beat the song is built on is one bar, played through bars 29, 31 and 35, and 27 more places -- 19.7% 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---x---x---x---|
SD |--------x-------|
BD |x-----x-----x---|
Better Than Drugs -- the groove · x hit · o open hi-hat · g ghost note · r cross-stick · X accent

The fills

5 fills to learn, played 10 times: bars 37, 38, 54, 87, 88, 104 and 4 more.

What the course does

It cuts the song into 39 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 -- H, I -- 4 exercises, about 26 minutes.
  2. The grooves the song is built on -- F -- 5 exercises, about 30 minutes.
  3. Bars 17-44 -- 6 exercises, about 31 minutes.
  4. Bars 32-59 -- 6 exercises, about 32 minutes.
  5. Bars 43-94 -- 4 exercises, about 26 minutes.
  6. Bars 61-110 -- 7 exercises, about 33 minutes.
  7. Bars 107-155 -- 9 exercises, about 32 minutes. Open above.
  8. The whole song -- 4 exercises, about 24 minutes.
START THE COURSE ↑

Questions

What BPM is Better Than Drugs?

176 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 Better Than Drugs hard to play on drums?

44 out of 100 -- a fair first song -- with the independence between the hands and the feet the part that decides it. The beat itself is 29 out of 100; the rest of the number is everything around it.

How long is the drum part?

171 bars, about 3:53 at the written tempo. The course breaks it into 39 exercises over 8 sittings, about 29 minutes each.

What do I need on the kit?

crash, hi-hat, snare, high tom, mid tom, floor tom and kick. That is most of a full kit; the part moves around it rather than sitting in one place.

How many fills are in Better Than Drugs?

5 fills to learn, played 10 times: bars 37, 38, 54, 87, 88, 104 and 4 more.

READ OFF THE SCORE ITSELF · 171 BARS ANALYSED