ABOUT THIS DRUM PART

How to play Chlorine at Flanders on drums

145 bars at 170 BPM -- fast, and 3:17 of it without a break -- on crash, ride, hi-hat, snare, high tom, mid tom, floor tom, kick and hi-hat foot.

91 out of 100. Hard, and what makes it hard is how many notes a second it asks for.

TEMPO: 170 BPM
TIME: 4/4
BARS: 145
LENGTH: 3:17
DIFFICULTY: 91/100

hi-hat through bars 1-60, ride through bars 61-64, hi-hat through bars 65-68, snare through bars 69-78, hi-hat through bars 79-94 and snare through bars 95-97, and 4 more changes after that.

The beat

The beat the song is built on is a 2-bar phrase, played through bars 17-19, 21-23 and 104-106, and 1 more place -- 8.1% of every bar the kit plays. This one moves around more than most: the beat is where to start, not the whole job.

    17                                               18
    1...........2...........3...........4........... 1...........2...........3...........4...........
CC |------------------------------------------------|------------x-----------------------------------|
HH |o-----o-----o-----o-----o-----o-----o-----o-----|o-----o-----------------------------------------|
SD |x--x--x--x--x--x--x--x--x--x--x--x--x--x--x--x--|x--x--x--x--------------X--X--X--X--X--X--X-----|
BD |x--x--x--x--x--x--x--x--x--x--x--x--x--x--x--x--|x--x--x--x--x-----------------------------------|

Chlorine at Flanders -- the groove · x hit · o open hi-hat · g ghost note · r cross-stick · X accent

The fills

14 fills to learn, played 17 times: bars 8, 12, 40, 68, 72, 76 and 11 more.

What the course does

It cuts the song into 71 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.

The grooves the song is built on -- G -- 1 exercise, about 18 minutes.
The grooves the song is built on -- J -- 1 exercise, about 20 minutes.
The grooves the song is built on -- W -- 6 exercises, about 36 minutes.
Through Part B -- 2 exercises, about 15 minutes.
Through Part D -- 3 exercises, about 29 minutes. Open above.
Bars 5-17 -- 6 exercises, about 26 minutes.
Bars 13-25 -- 3 exercises, about 28 minutes.
Through Part G and Part J -- 2 exercises, about 27 minutes.
and 16 more sittings after that.

START THE COURSE ↑

Questions

What BPM is Chlorine at Flanders?

170 BPM, in 4/4, with the time kept in thirty-second notes. At that speed the thirty-second notes are the whole difficulty, so the room will take it down to a quarter of it and climb back.

Is Chlorine at Flanders hard to play on drums?

91 out of 100. Hard, and what makes it hard is how many notes a second it asks for. The beat itself is 69 out of 100; the rest of the number is everything around it.

How long is the drum part?

145 bars, about 3:17 at the written tempo. The course breaks it into 71 exercises over 24 sittings, about 26 minutes each.

What do I need on the kit?

crash, ride, 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 Chlorine at Flanders?

14 fills to learn, played 17 times: bars 8, 12, 40, 68, 72, 76 and 11 more.

READ OFF THE SCORE ITSELF · 145 BARS ANALYSED