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Closer · Nine Inch Nails

EXERCISE 15 OF 27
Run B2 · Verse 2 (bars 33-46)
116 / 132 BARS COVERED
0 / 27 PASSED · 14 BARS LIT · IN THE VERSE 2
PART A
VERSE
PART C
PART D
VERSE 2
CHORUS
PART D
VERSE 3
CHORUS 2
VERSE 4
OUTRO
6 groovesBEDFA+1Fill into the next barFill that ends a sectionInto the next partStop / hitRest
GROOVE · 6
RUN · 1
JOIN · 8
LINK · 8
SECTION · 3
WHOLE SONG · 1
ABOUT THIS DRUM PART

How to play Closer on drums

132 bars of 4/4 at a walking 90 BPM, 5:52 of playing, on hi-hat, snare, high tom, kick and hi-hat foot.

74 out of 100: demanding, mostly on the independence between the hands and the feet.

TEMPO
90 BPM
TIME
4/4
BARS
132
LENGTH
5:52
DIFFICULTY
74/100

snare through bars 1-8 and hi-hat through bars 9-132.

The beat

The beat the song is built on is one bar, played through bars 9-16, 33-40 and 65-84, and 1 more place -- 39.4% of every bar the kit plays. Learn that one and most of the song is already under your hands.

    9
    1e+a2e+a3e+a4e+a
HH |xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx|
SD |----x-------x---|
BD |x---x---x---x---|
Closer -- the groove · x hit · o open hi-hat · g ghost note · r cross-stick · X accent

The fills

There are no fills to speak of: the part holds one beat the whole way through.

What the course does

It cuts the song into 26 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 -- B -- 1 exercise, about 16 minutes.
  2. The grooves the song is built on -- E -- 1 exercise, about 18 minutes.
  3. The grooves the song is built on -- C -- 3 exercises, about 31 minutes.
  4. Bars 5-20 -- 4 exercises, about 20 minutes.
  5. Bars 21-36 -- 5 exercises, about 34 minutes.
  6. Bars 33-60 -- 6 exercises, about 28 minutes. Open above.
  7. Bars 97-117 -- 3 exercises, about 29 minutes.
  8. The whole song -- 4 exercises, about 24 minutes.
START THE COURSE ↑

Questions

What BPM is Closer?

90 BPM, in 4/4, with the time kept in sixteenth notes. The room plays it at any tempo from a quarter of that up to the written one, against the record where the record can follow.

Is Closer hard to play on drums?

74 out of 100: demanding, mostly on the independence between the hands and the feet. The beat itself is 57 out of 100; the rest of the number is everything around it.

How long is the drum part?

132 bars, about 5:52 at the written tempo. The course breaks it into 26 exercises over 8 sittings, about 25 minutes each.

What do I need on the kit?

hi-hat, snare, high tom, kick and hi-hat foot. Nothing in the part asks for anything else.

READ OFF THE SCORE ITSELF · 132 BARS ANALYSED