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Élan · Nightwish

EXERCISE 1 OF 49
Groove O -- Part O (a two-bar phrase)
0 / 136 BARS COVERED
0 / 49 PASSED · 27 BARS LIT · IN THE PART O
COUNT-IN
PART B
CHORUS
PART O
PART B
CHORUS 2
PART T
PART O
BREAK
OUTRO
OUTRO 2
7 groovesIOBCT+2Fill into the next barFill that ends a sectionInto the next partStop / hitRest
GROOVE · 9
FILL · 10
LAND · 10
RUN · 1
JOIN · 7
LINK · 6
SECTION · 5
WHOLE SONG · 1
ABOUT THIS DRUM PART

How to play Élan on drums

136 bars of 4/4 at 128 BPM, about 4:13 of playing, on crash, ride, hi-hat, snare, high tom, mid tom, floor tom, kick and hi-hat foot.

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

TEMPO
128 BPM
TIME
4/4
BARS
136
LENGTH
4:13
DIFFICULTY
48/100

silence through bars 1-8, hi-hat through bars 9-16, toms through bars 17-38, kick and crashes through bars 39-42, ride through bars 43-58 and hi-hat through bars 59-66, and 7 more changes after that.

The beat

The beat the song is built on is a 2-bar phrase, played through bars 43-49, 51-57 and 89-95, and 2 more places -- 22.5% of every bar the kit plays. This one moves around more than most: the beat is where to start, not the whole job.

    43               44
    1e+a2e+a3e+a4e+a 1e+a2e+a3e+a4e+a
CC |x---------------|----------------|
RD |--x-x-x-x-x-x-x-|x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-|
SD |----x-------x---|----x-------x---|
BD |x-------x-------|x-------x-----x-|
Élan -- the groove · x hit · o open hi-hat · g ghost note · r cross-stick · X accent

The fills

10 fills to learn, played 22 times: bars 14, 16, 20, 29, 38, 40 and 16 more.

What the course does

It cuts the song into 38 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 -- O, I -- 2 exercises, about 22 minutes.
  2. The grooves the song is built on -- B -- 4 exercises, about 29 minutes.
  3. Bars 12-129 -- 4 exercises, about 30 minutes.
  4. Through Part B and the Chorus -- 6 exercises, about 30 minutes.
  5. Bars 14-46 -- 9 exercises, about 33 minutes.
  6. Through Part O and Part B -- 7 exercises, about 25 minutes.
  7. Through the Chorus 2 -- 3 exercises, about 29 minutes.
  8. Bars 76-105 -- 6 exercises, about 29 minutes.
  9. and 2 more sittings after that.
START THE COURSE ↑

Questions

What BPM is Élan?

128 BPM, in 4/4, with the time kept in sixteenth 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 Élan hard to play on drums?

48 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 38 out of 100; the rest of the number is everything around it.

How long is the drum part?

136 bars, about 4:13 at the written tempo. The course breaks it into 38 exercises over 10 sittings, about 26 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 Élan?

10 fills to learn, played 22 times: bars 14, 16, 20, 29, 38, 40 and 16 more.

READ OFF THE SCORE ITSELF · 136 BARS ANALYSED