ABOUT THIS DRUM PART

How to play Fear Itself on drums

98 bars at 175 BPM -- fast, and 2:19 of it without a break -- on crash, ride, hi-hat, snare, high tom, mid tom, floor tom, kick and hi-hat foot.

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

TEMPO: 175 BPM
TIME: 4/4
BARS: 98
LENGTH: 2:19
DIFFICULTY: 89/100

toms through bars 1-5, snare through bars 6-13, toms through bars 14-18, hi-hat through bars 19-22, ride through bars 23-26 and hi-hat through bars 27-88, and 3 more changes after that.

The beat

The beat the song is built on is one bar, played through bars 19-22, 61-65 and 75-77 -- 12.6% of every bar the kit plays. This one moves around more than most: the beat is where to start, not the whole job.

    19
    1...............2...............3...............4...............
CC |x---x-----------------------------------------------------------|
HH |------------o-------o-------o-------o-------o-------o-------o---|
SD |----x-------x-------x-------x-------x-------x-------x-------x---|
BD |x-------x-x-x-x-x-------x-------x-x-x-x-x-------x-------x-x-x-x-|

Fear Itself -- the groove · x hit · o open hi-hat · g ghost note · r cross-stick · X accent

The fills

9 fills to learn, played 20 times: bars 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 26 and 14 more.

What the course does

It cuts the song into 40 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.

The grooves the song is built on -- P -- 1 exercise, about 21 minutes. Open above.
The grooves the song is built on -- S -- 1 exercise, about 18 minutes.
The grooves the song is built on -- AB -- 1 exercise, about 18 minutes.
Through Part F -- 2 exercises, about 23 minutes.
Through Part F and Part P -- 6 exercises, about 29 minutes.
Through Part P and Part Q -- 2 exercises, about 27 minutes.
Through Part Q and Part S -- 6 exercises, about 27 minutes.
Through Part S and the Chorus -- 3 exercises, about 27 minutes.
and 7 more sittings after that.

START THE COURSE ↑

Questions

What BPM is Fear Itself?

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

Is Fear Itself hard to play on drums?

89 out of 100. Hard, and what makes it hard is how many notes a second it asks for. The beat itself is 90 out of 100; the rest of the number is everything around it.

How long is the drum part?

98 bars, about 2:19 at the written tempo. The course breaks it into 40 exercises over 15 sittings, about 24 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 Fear Itself?

9 fills to learn, played 20 times: bars 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 26 and 14 more.

READ OFF THE SCORE ITSELF · 98 BARS ANALYSED