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Darkness Descends · Dark Angel

Darkness Descends · Dark Angel
EXERCISE 30 OF 69
Groove P -- Part P (a two-bar phrase)
246 / 296 BARS COVERED
0 / 69 PASSED · 4 BARS LIT · IN THE PART P
PART P
PART V
CHORUS
CHORUS 2
CHORUS 3
CHORUS 4
CHORUS 5
CHORUS 6
CHORUS 7
OUTRO
8 groovesYUVJC+3Fill into the next barFill that ends a sectionInto the next partStop / hitRest
GROOVE · 10
FILL · 18
LAND · 18
RUN · 4
JOIN · 7
LINK · 4
SECTION · 7
WHOLE SONG · 1
ABOUT THIS DRUM PART

How to play Darkness Descends on drums

296 bars of 4/4 at 120 BPM, about 9:52 of playing, on crash, ride, hi-hat, snare, high tom, mid tom, floor tom and kick.

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

TEMPO
120 BPM
TIME
4/4
BARS
296
LENGTH
9:52
DIFFICULTY
70/100

toms through bar 1, kick and crashes through bars 2-13, hi-hat through bars 14-31, ride through bars 32-35, snare through bars 36-38 and silence through bars 39-41, and 21 more changes after that.

The beat

The beat the song is built on is one bar, played through bars 58-60, 62-68 and 70-72, and 19 more places -- 46.8% of every bar the kit plays. Learn that one and most of the song is already under your hands.

    59
    1...........2...........3...........4...........
HH |o-----------o-----------o-----------o-----------|
SD |------x-----------x-----------x-----------x-----|
BD |x-----------x-----------x-----------x-----------|
Darkness Descends -- the groove · x hit · o open hi-hat · g ghost note · r cross-stick · X accent

The fills

18 fills to learn, played 37 times: bars 1, 13, 17, 19, 21, 23 and 31 more.

What the course does

It cuts the song into 50 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 -- Y, U -- 2 exercises, about 29 minutes.
  2. The grooves the song is built on -- V -- 4 exercises, about 27 minutes.
  3. Through Part C -- 4 exercises, about 29 minutes.
  4. Through Part C and Part G -- 2 exercises, about 25 minutes.
  5. Through Part G and Part J -- 5 exercises, about 32 minutes.
  6. Through Part G and Part J -- 8 exercises, about 30 minutes.
  7. Through Part G and Part J -- 4 exercises, about 16 minutes.
  8. Bars 30-38 -- 4 exercises, about 31 minutes. Open above.
  9. and 7 more sittings after that.
START THE COURSE ↑

Questions

What BPM is Darkness Descends?

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 Darkness Descends hard to play on drums?

70 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?

296 bars, about 9:52 at the written tempo. The course breaks it into 50 exercises over 15 sittings, about 27 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 Darkness Descends?

18 fills to learn, played 37 times: bars 1, 13, 17, 19, 21, 23 and 31 more.

READ OFF THE SCORE ITSELF · 296 BARS ANALYSED