ABOUT THIS DRUM PART

How to play Contractor on drums

119 bars at 190 BPM -- fast, and 2:30 of it without a break -- on crash, ride, hi-hat, snare, high tom, mid tom, floor tom and kick.

74 out of 100: demanding, mostly on how many notes a second it asks for.

TEMPO: 190 BPM
TIME: 4/4
BARS: 119
LENGTH: 2:30
DIFFICULTY: 74/100

kick and crashes through bar 1, snare through bars 2-9, ride through bars 10-13, snare through bars 14-16, kick and crashes through bars 17-18 and hi-hat through bars 19-26, and 11 more changes after that.

The beat

The beat the song is built on is a 2-bar phrase, played through bars 19-20, 23-24 and 44-45, and 4 more places -- 12.6% of every bar the kit plays. This one moves around more than most: the beat is where to start, not the whole job.

    19                                               20
    1...........2...........3...........4........... 1...........2...........3...........4...........
HH |------------------------------------------o-----|------o-----------------------------------------|
SD |------------------------------------------------|------------------------x-----------------------|
FT |x-----x-----x-----x-----x-----x-----x-----------|------------------------------------------------|
BD |x-----x-----x-----x-----x-----x-----x-----x-----|------------x-----x-----x-----x-----x-----x-----|

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

The fills

2 fills to learn, played 2 times: bars 76 and 95.

What the course does

It cuts the song into 31 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 -- H, B -- 2 exercises, about 30 minutes.
The grooves the song is built on -- G -- 1 exercise, about 17 minutes.
Through the Chorus -- 2 exercises, about 20 minutes.
Through the Chorus -- 1 exercise, about 19 minutes.
Through the Chorus -- 1 exercise, about 19 minutes.
Through the Chorus and Part H -- 4 exercises, about 26 minutes.
Bars 22-51 -- 4 exercises, about 19 minutes.
Through Part O -- 3 exercises, about 32 minutes.
and 5 more sittings after that.

START THE COURSE ↑

Questions

What BPM is Contractor?

190 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 Contractor hard to play on drums?

74 out of 100: demanding, mostly on how many notes a second it asks for. The beat itself is 37 out of 100; the rest of the number is everything around it.

How long is the drum part?

119 bars, about 2:30 at the written tempo. The course breaks it into 31 exercises over 13 sittings, about 22 minutes each.

What do I need on the kit?

crash, ride, 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 Contractor?

2 fills to learn, played 2 times: bars 76 and 95.

READ OFF THE SCORE ITSELF · 119 BARS ANALYSED