ABOUT THIS DRUM PART

How to play Dark Days on drums

126 bars of 4/4 at 120 BPM, about 4:12 of playing, on crash, ride, hi-hat, snare, high tom, mid tom, floor tom and kick.

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

TEMPO: 120 BPM
TIME: 4/4
BARS: 126
LENGTH: 4:12
DIFFICULTY: 71/100

ride through bars 1-8, toms through bars 9-16, snare through bars 17-105, toms through bars 106-109, snare through bars 110-114 and hi-hat through bars 115-117, and 1 more change after that.

The beat

The beat the song is built on is a 2-bar phrase, played through bars 45-47, 49-51 and 54-55, and 5 more places -- 18.3% of every bar the kit plays. This one moves around more than most: the beat is where to start, not the whole job.

    46                                                               47
    1...............2...............3...............4............... 1...............2...............3...............4...............
CC |x---------------x---------------x---------------x---------------|x---------------x---------------x---------------x---------------|
SD |--------------------------------x-------------------------------|--------------------------------x-------------------------------|
BD |x-----------------------x--x-x----------------------------------|x---x-----------x---x---------------x-------x-------x---x-------|

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

The fills

6 fills to learn, played 14 times: bars 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14 and 8 more.

What the course does

It cuts the song into 40 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 -- R -- 1 exercise, about 14 minutes.
The grooves the song is built on -- M -- 1 exercise, about 19 minutes.
The grooves the song is built on -- O -- 3 exercises, about 26 minutes.
Through Part S2 -- 1 exercise, about 18 minutes.
Through Part S2 -- 1 exercise, about 18 minutes. Open above.
Through Part S2 and Part H -- 3 exercises, about 28 minutes.
Through Part S2 and Part H -- 3 exercises, about 24 minutes.
Through Part H -- 2 exercises, about 19 minutes.
and 7 more sittings after that.

START THE COURSE ↑

Questions

What BPM is Dark Days?

120 BPM, in 4/4, with the time kept in thirty-second 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 Dark Days hard to play on drums?

71 out of 100: demanding, mostly on the independence between the hands and the feet. The beat itself is 49 out of 100; the rest of the number is everything around it.

How long is the drum part?

126 bars, about 4:12 at the written tempo. The course breaks it into 40 exercises over 15 sittings, about 23 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 Dark Days?

6 fills to learn, played 14 times: bars 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14 and 8 more.

READ OFF THE SCORE ITSELF · 126 BARS ANALYSED