Broken Cog · Meshuggah

160 bars of 6/4 -- not four -- at 174 BPM, 5:31 of playing on crash, snare, high tom, mid tom and kick.

150 BPM and upShuffle / tripletIntermediate
TEMPO
174 BPM
TIME
6/4
BARS
160
LENGTH
5:31
DIFFICULTY
37/100
THE BEAT

One bar, and 15% of the song

The beat the song is built on is one bar, played through bars 89-95, 97-103 and 105-106 -- 15% of every bar the kit plays. This one moves around more than most: the beat is where to start, not the whole job.

LOOP · 174 BPM
BROKEN COG · BAR 89
THE BEAT, WRITTEN OUT →
THE FILLS

Where it comes off the beat

1 fill to learn, played 88 times: bars 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 and 82 more.

LOOP · 174 BPM
BARS 1-88 · LANDS ON BAR 89 · PLAYED 88 TIMES
EVERY FILL, WRITTEN OUT →
THE SHAPE

How the song is built

160 bars across 2 sections: 18 keep time, 88 are fills, 1 is a stop and 53 are silent. The longest unbroken stretch of time is bars 89-106.

OUTRO
BREAK
2 groovesXS2Fill into the next barFill that ends a sectionInto the next partStop / hitRest

Questions

What BPM is Broken Cog?

174 BPM, in 6/4, 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 Broken Cog hard to play on drums?

37 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 30 out of 100; the rest of the number is everything around it.

How long is the drum part?

160 bars, about 5:31 at the written tempo. The course breaks it into 6 exercises over 4 sittings, about 35 minutes each.

What do I need on the kit?

crash, snare, high tom, mid tom and kick. Nothing in the part asks for anything else.

How many fills are in Broken Cog?

1 fill to learn, played 88 times: bars 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 and 82 more.

READ OFF THE SCORE ITSELF · 160 BARS ANALYSED
MORE BY THIS BAND

Other Meshuggah drum parts

EVERY MESHUGGAH CHART →
AT THIS LEVEL

Play something else today

EVERY SONG A-Z →