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From Afar · Ensiferum

EXERCISE 10 OF 59
Groove F -- Part F
145 / 243 BARS COVERED
0 / 59 PASSED · 14 BARS LIT · IN THE PART F
PART A
CHORUS
PART F
CHORUS 2
PART I
PART A
CHORUS 3
PART M
CHORUS 4
PART V
OUTRO
9 groovesCMAFI+4Fill into the next barFill that ends a sectionInto the next partStop / hitRest
GROOVE · 7
FILL · 12
LAND · 12
RUN · 3
JOIN · 9
LINK · 7
SECTION · 8
WHOLE SONG · 1
ABOUT THIS DRUM PART

How to play From Afar on drums

243 bars at 205 BPM -- fast, and 4:44 of it without a break -- on crash, ride, hi-hat, snare, high tom, mid tom, floor tom and kick.

95 out of 100. Hard, and what makes it hard is the independence between the hands and the feet.

TEMPO
205 BPM
TIME
4/4
BARS
243
LENGTH
4:44
DIFFICULTY
95/100

hi-hat through bars 1-35, snare through bars 36-51, hi-hat through bars 52-121, snare through bars 122-123, hi-hat through bars 124-129 and snare through bars 130-131, and 8 more changes after that.

The beat

The beat the song is built on is one bar, played through bars 17-32, 52-67 and 100-105, and 4 more places -- 30.8% of every bar the kit plays. That is the spine of it; everything else is what happens around it.

    18
    1.......2.......3.......4.......
HH |o---o---o---o---o---o---o---o---|
SD |----x-------x-------x-------x---|
BD |x-------x-x-----x-------x-x-----|
From Afar -- the groove · x hit · o open hi-hat · g ghost note · r cross-stick · X accent

The fills

12 fills to learn, played 19 times: bars 16, 43, 51, 83, 99, 106 and 13 more.

What the course does

It cuts the song into 46 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 -- C -- 2 exercises, about 25 minutes.
  2. The grooves the song is built on -- A -- 2 exercises, about 25 minutes.
  3. The grooves the song is built on -- M -- 5 exercises, about 28 minutes.
  4. Through Part F -- 4 exercises, about 30 minutes. Open above.
  5. Through Part F and the Chorus 2 -- 5 exercises, about 22 minutes.
  6. Through the Chorus 2 and Part I -- 3 exercises, about 33 minutes.
  7. Through Part I and Part A -- 3 exercises, about 28 minutes.
  8. Bars 68-103 -- 6 exercises, about 28 minutes.
  9. and 5 more sittings after that.
START THE COURSE ↑

Questions

What BPM is From Afar?

205 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 From Afar hard to play on drums?

95 out of 100. Hard, and what makes it hard is the independence between the hands and the feet. The beat itself is 86 out of 100; the rest of the number is everything around it.

How long is the drum part?

243 bars, about 4:44 at the written tempo. The course breaks it into 46 exercises over 13 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 From Afar?

12 fills to learn, played 19 times: bars 16, 43, 51, 83, 99, 106 and 13 more.

READ OFF THE SCORE ITSELF · 243 BARS ANALYSED