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Devil's Island · Megadeth

EXERCISE 18 OF 77
Join Part A to Part C (bars 3-5)
82 / 200 BARS COVERED
0 / 77 PASSED · 3 BARS LIT · IN THE PART A, PART C
PART A
PART C
PART K
PART K
PART Q
PART I
PART X
CHORUS
PART AH
OUTRO
OUTRO 2
12 groovesABKQAHAQ+7Fill into the next barFill that ends a sectionInto the next partStop / hitRest
GROOVE · 17
FILL · 15
LAND · 15
RUN · 3
JOIN · 11
LINK · 5
SECTION · 10
WHOLE SONG · 1
ABOUT THIS DRUM PART

How to play Devil's Island on drums

200 bars, 10:35, at 75 BPM: slow enough that every note is exposed. Crash, ride, hi-hat, snare, high tom, mid tom, floor tom, kick and hi-hat foot and nothing else.

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

TEMPO
75 BPM
TIME
4/4
BARS
200
LENGTH
10:35
DIFFICULTY
67/100

toms through bars 1-13, silence through bars 14-16, kick and crashes through bars 17-19, hi-hat through bars 20-118, ride through bars 119-150 and kick and crashes through bars 151-165, and 2 more changes after that.

The beat

The beat the song is built on is one bar, played through bars 39, 41 and 43, and 6 more places -- 13.8% of every bar the kit plays. This one moves around more than most: the beat is where to start, not the whole job.

    64
    1.......2.......3.......4.......
HH |o-------o-------o-------o-------|
SD |--------x---------------x-------|
BD |x---x-xx----x---x-----x-----x---|
Devil's Island -- the groove · x hit · o open hi-hat · g ghost note · r cross-stick · X accent

The fills

15 fills to learn, played 25 times: bars 4, 6, 8, 10, 11, 12 and 19 more.

What the course does

It cuts the song into 61 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 -- Q, AB -- 2 exercises, about 29 minutes.
  2. The grooves the song is built on -- AQ -- 3 exercises, about 23 minutes.
  3. Through Part A and Part C -- 4 exercises, about 32 minutes.
  4. Bars 1-13 -- 8 exercises, about 30 minutes.
  5. Bars 3-24 -- 4 exercises, about 30 minutes. Open above.
  6. Through Part K -- 2 exercises, about 21 minutes.
  7. Through Part K -- 1 exercise, about 16 minutes.
  8. Through Part K -- 3 exercises, about 23 minutes.
  9. and 12 more sittings after that.
START THE COURSE ↑

Questions

What BPM is Devil's Island?

75 BPM, in 4/4, with the time kept in thirty-second notes. Slow enough to hear every mistake, which is why the room lets you sit at the written tempo rather than under it.

Is Devil's Island hard to play on drums?

67 out of 100: demanding, mostly on the independence between the hands and the feet. The beat itself is 50 out of 100; the rest of the number is everything around it.

How long is the drum part?

200 bars, about 10:35 at the written tempo. The course breaks it into 61 exercises over 20 sittings, about 25 minutes each.

What do I need on the kit?

crash, ride, hi-hat, snare, high tom, mid tom, floor tom, kick and hi-hat foot. That is most of a full kit; the part moves around it rather than sitting in one place.

How many fills are in Devil's Island?

15 fills to learn, played 25 times: bars 4, 6, 8, 10, 11, 12 and 19 more.

READ OFF THE SCORE ITSELF · 200 BARS ANALYSED