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Darker Still · Parkway Drive

EXERCISE 42 OF 49
Fill at bar 102
89 / 110 BARS COVERED
0 / 49 PASSED · 1 BAR LIT · IN THE OUTRO
CHORUS
CHORUS 2
CHORUS 3
PART S7
PART T
OUTRO
OUTRO 2
8 groovesCTXS7S3+3Fill into the next barFill that ends a sectionInto the next partStop / hitRest
GROOVE · 7
FILL · 14
LAND · 14
RUN · 2
JOIN · 5
LINK · 2
SECTION · 4
WHOLE SONG · 1
ABOUT THIS DRUM PART

How to play Darker Still on drums

110 bars of 4/4 at a walking 80 BPM, 5:24 of playing, on crash, ride, hi-hat, snare, high tom, mid tom, floor tom and kick.

53 out of 100, a step up from a first song, and the work is in the independence between the hands and the feet.

TEMPO
80 BPM
TIME
4/4
BARS
110
LENGTH
5:24
DIFFICULTY
53/100

silence through bars 1-5, hi-hat through bars 6-22, silence through bars 23-27, hi-hat through bars 28-35, silence through bars 36-39 and hi-hat through bars 40-86, and 2 more changes after that.

The beat

The beat the song is built on is one bar, played through bars 6-8, 10-12 and 14-16, and 12 more places -- 23.7% of every bar the kit plays. This one moves around more than most: the beat is where to start, not the whole job.

    6
    1.......2.......3.......4.......
CC |x-------------------------------|
HH |----x---x---x---x---x---x---x---|
SD |------------------------x-------|
BD |x-----------x-------------------|
Darker Still -- the groove · x hit · o open hi-hat · g ghost note · r cross-stick · X accent

The fills

14 fills to learn, played 22 times: bars 5, 27, 31, 34, 39, 57 and 16 more.

What the course does

It cuts the song into 34 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 -- C, T -- 4 exercises, about 29 minutes.
  2. The grooves the song is built on -- D -- 5 exercises, about 30 minutes.
  3. Bars 27-40 -- 10 exercises, about 30 minutes.
  4. Through the Chorus 3 and Part S7 -- 6 exercises, about 26 minutes.
  5. Bars 69-79 -- 5 exercises, about 33 minutes.
  6. Through Part T and the Outro -- 5 exercises, about 30 minutes.
  7. Through Part T and the Outro -- 6 exercises, about 32 minutes.
  8. Through the Outro and the Outro 2 -- 7 exercises, about 31 minutes. Open above.
  9. and 1 more sittings after that.
START THE COURSE ↑

Questions

What BPM is Darker Still?

80 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 Darker Still hard to play on drums?

53 out of 100, a step up from a first song, and the work is in the independence between the hands and the feet. The beat itself is 30 out of 100; the rest of the number is everything around it.

How long is the drum part?

110 bars, about 5:24 at the written tempo. The course breaks it into 34 exercises over 9 sittings, about 28 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 Darker Still?

14 fills to learn, played 22 times: bars 5, 27, 31, 34, 39, 57 and 16 more.

READ OFF THE SCORE ITSELF · 110 BARS ANALYSED