← SONGS

Dragon Force · Unlucky Morpheus

EXERCISE 1 OF 75
Groove H -- Chorus
0 / 181 BARS COVERED
0 / 75 PASSED · 32 BARS LIT
PART G
CHORUS
PART N
CHORUS 2
PART K
CHORUS 3
PART N
OUTRO 2
5 groovesHGKNJFill into the next barFill that ends a sectionInto the next partStop / hitRest
GROOVE · 7
FILL · 18
LAND · 18
RUN · 3
JOIN · 12
LINK · 12
SECTION · 4
WHOLE SONG · 1
ABOUT THIS DRUM PART

How to play Dragon Force on drums

181 bars at 170 BPM -- fast, and 4:16 of it without a break -- on crash, hi-hat, snare, high tom, mid tom, floor tom and kick.

84 out of 100. Hard, and what makes it hard is how many notes a second it asks for.

TEMPO
170 BPM
TIME
4/4
BARS
181
LENGTH
4:16
DIFFICULTY
84/100

kick and crashes through bars 1-6, snare through bars 7-8, hi-hat through bars 9-72, snare through bars 73-74, hi-hat through bars 75-88 and toms through bars 89-90, and 10 more changes after that.

The beat

The beat the song is built on is one bar, played through bars 15, 41-47 and 75-77, and 5 more places -- 17.7% of every bar the kit plays. This one moves around more than most: the beat is where to start, not the whole job.

    15
    1e+a2e+a3e+a4e+a
HH |o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-|
SD |--x---x---x---x-|
BD |xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx|
Dragon Force -- the groove · x hit · o open hi-hat · g ghost note · r cross-stick · X accent

The fills

18 fills to learn, played 44 times: bars 4, 6, 7, 8, 16, 24 and 38 more.

What the course does

It cuts the song into 56 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 -- H -- 3 exercises, about 27 minutes.
  2. The grooves the song is built on -- K -- 3 exercises, about 25 minutes.
  3. The grooves the song is built on -- G -- 6 exercises, about 37 minutes.
  4. Through Part G and Part J -- 5 exercises, about 33 minutes.
  5. Through Part J and Part K -- 4 exercises, about 19 minutes.
  6. Bars 34-72 -- 4 exercises, about 28 minutes.
  7. Bars 25-36 -- 5 exercises, about 21 minutes.
  8. Through Part N and the Chorus -- 4 exercises, about 30 minutes.
  9. and 8 more sittings after that.
START THE COURSE ↑

Questions

What BPM is Dragon Force?

170 BPM, in 4/4, with the time kept in sixteenth notes. At that speed the sixteenth notes are the whole difficulty, so the room will take it down to a quarter of it and climb back.

Is Dragon Force hard to play on drums?

84 out of 100. Hard, and what makes it hard is how many notes a second it asks for. The beat itself is 81 out of 100; the rest of the number is everything around it.

How long is the drum part?

181 bars, about 4:16 at the written tempo. The course breaks it into 56 exercises over 16 sittings, about 26 minutes each.

What do I need on the kit?

crash, 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 Dragon Force?

18 fills to learn, played 44 times: bars 4, 6, 7, 8, 16, 24 and 38 more.

READ OFF THE SCORE ITSELF · 181 BARS ANALYSED