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Empty Walls · Serj Tankian

Empty Walls · Serj Tankian
EXERCISE 13 OF 36
Join Chorus to Part J (bars 41-43)
107 / 149 BARS COVERED
0 / 36 PASSED · 3 BARS LIT · IN THE CHORUS, PART J
PART C
CHORUS
PART J
CHORUS 2
PART J
PART C
PART S10
PART N
BREAK
OUTRO
OUTRO 2
8 groovesFCKJN+3Fill into the next barFill that ends a sectionInto the next partStop / hitRest
GROOVE · 8
FILL · 4
LAND · 4
RUN · 3
JOIN · 7
LINK · 5
SECTION · 4
WHOLE SONG · 1
ABOUT THIS DRUM PART

How to play Empty Walls on drums

149 bars at 162 BPM -- fast, and 3:40 of it without a break -- on crash, ride, hi-hat, snare, high tom, mid tom, floor tom and kick.

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

TEMPO
162 BPM
TIME
4/4
BARS
149
LENGTH
3:40
DIFFICULTY
57/100

snare through bars 3-18, hi-hat through bars 19-42, ride through bars 43-58, hi-hat through bars 59-74, ride through bars 75-90 and snare through bars 91-99, and 6 more changes after that.

The beat

The beat the song is built on is a 2-bar phrase, played through bars 20-40 and 60-72 -- 25.8% of every bar the kit plays. That is the spine of it; everything else is what happens around it.

    20               21
    1e+a2e+a3e+a4e+a 1e+a2e+a3e+a4e+a
HH |x-x-x---x---x-gx|x---x---x---x-x-|
SD |--------x-------|--------x-------|
BD |----x-----------|x---x---------x-|
Empty Walls -- the groove · x hit · o open hi-hat · g ghost note · r cross-stick · X accent

The fills

4 fills to learn, played 7 times: bars 18, 42, 74, 98, 138, 147 and 1 more.

What the course does

It cuts the song into 31 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 -- F, C -- 3 exercises, about 29 minutes.
  2. The grooves the song is built on -- K -- 5 exercises, about 30 minutes.
  3. Through the Chorus and Part J -- 4 exercises, about 32 minutes.
  4. Bars 39-55 -- 5 exercises, about 24 minutes. Open above.
  5. Through Part K and the Chorus 2 -- 4 exercises, about 29 minutes.
  6. Bars 59-99 -- 6 exercises, about 24 minutes.
  7. Through Part N -- 3 exercises, about 29 minutes.
  8. The whole song -- 6 exercises, about 30 minutes.
START THE COURSE ↑

Questions

What BPM is Empty Walls?

162 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 Empty Walls hard to play on drums?

57 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 40 out of 100; the rest of the number is everything around it.

How long is the drum part?

149 bars, about 3:40 at the written tempo. The course breaks it into 31 exercises over 8 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 Empty Walls?

4 fills to learn, played 7 times: bars 18, 42, 74, 98, 138, 147 and 1 more.

READ OFF THE SCORE ITSELF · 149 BARS ANALYSED