← SONGS

Fortress · Queens Of The Stone Age

EXERCISE 32 OF 38
Join Outro to Outro 2 (bars 93-95)
112 / 130 BARS COVERED
0 / 38 PASSED · 3 BARS LIT · IN THE OUTRO, OUTRO 2
PART D
CHORUS
PART L
PART D
OUTRO
OUTRO 2
5 groovesHDLIS1Fill into the next barFill that ends a sectionInto the next partStop / hitRest
GROOVE · 10
FILL · 7
LAND · 7
RUN · 1
JOIN · 5
LINK · 3
SECTION · 4
WHOLE SONG · 1
ABOUT THIS DRUM PART

How to play Fortress on drums

130 bars of 4/4 at 120 BPM, about 4:20 of playing, on crash, ride, hi-hat, snare, high tom, mid tom, kick and hi-hat foot.

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

TEMPO
120 BPM
TIME
4/4
BARS
130
LENGTH
4:20
DIFFICULTY
62/100

silence through bars 1-5, hi-hat through bars 6-35, ride through bars 36-51, hi-hat through bars 52-64, snare through bars 65-68 and hi-hat through bars 69-84, and 11 more changes after that.

The beat

The beat the song is built on is one bar, played through bars 7-8, 10-12 and 14-16, and 9 more places -- 23% of every bar the kit plays. This one moves around more than most: the beat is where to start, not the whole job.

    7
    1e+a2e+a3e+a4e+a
HH |x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-|
SD |----x-------x---|
BD |x-----x-x-x-----|
Fortress -- the groove · x hit · o open hi-hat · g ghost note · r cross-stick · X accent

The fills

7 fills to learn, played 17 times: bars 5, 19, 43, 49, 51, 52 and 11 more.

What the course does

It cuts the song into 30 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 -- D, H -- 2 exercises, about 24 minutes.
  2. The grooves the song is built on -- L -- 2 exercises, about 29 minutes.
  3. Through Part D -- 4 exercises, about 24 minutes.
  4. Through Part D and the Chorus -- 6 exercises, about 34 minutes.
  5. Through the Chorus and Part L -- 5 exercises, about 29 minutes.
  6. Through the Chorus and Part L -- 5 exercises, about 32 minutes.
  7. Bars 54-94 -- 7 exercises, about 29 minutes.
  8. Through the Outro and the Outro 2 -- 3 exercises, about 30 minutes. Open above.
  9. and 1 more sittings after that.
START THE COURSE ↑

Questions

What BPM is Fortress?

120 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 Fortress hard to play on drums?

62 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 33 out of 100; the rest of the number is everything around it.

How long is the drum part?

130 bars, about 4:20 at the written tempo. The course breaks it into 30 exercises over 9 sittings, about 28 minutes each.

What do I need on the kit?

crash, ride, hi-hat, snare, high tom, mid 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 Fortress?

7 fills to learn, played 17 times: bars 5, 19, 43, 49, 51, 52 and 11 more.

READ OFF THE SCORE ITSELF · 130 BARS ANALYSED