Headless Cross · Black Sabbath

143 bars of 4/4 at a walking 88 BPM, 6:30 of playing, on crash, ride, hi-hat, snare, high tom, mid tom, floor tom, kick and hi-hat foot.

RockMetalUnder 90 BPMIntermediate
TEMPO
88 BPM
TIME
4/4
BARS
143
LENGTH
6:30
DIFFICULTY
79/100
THE BEAT

One bar, and 29% of the song

The beat the song is built on is one bar, played through bars 1, 3 and 5, and 36 more places -- 29.4% of every bar the kit plays. That is the spine of it; everything else is what happens around it.

LOOP · 88 BPM
HEADLESS CROSS · BAR 1
THE BEAT, WRITTEN OUT →
THE FILLS

Where it comes off the beat

16 fills to learn, played 28 times: bars 4, 12, 20, 28, 36, 38 and 22 more.

LOOP · 88 BPM
BAR 4 · LANDS ON BAR 5
LOOP · 88 BPM
BAR 12 · LANDS ON BAR 13 · PLAYED 7 TIMES
LOOP · 88 BPM
BAR 36 · LANDS ON BAR 37
LOOP · 88 BPM
BAR 38 · LANDS ON BAR 39 · PLAYED 3 TIMES

12 more fills are written out on the fills page.

EVERY FILL, WRITTEN OUT →
THE SHAPE

How the song is built

143 bars across 13 sections: 97 keep time, 28 are fills and 1 is a stop. The longest unbroken stretch of time is bars 5-11.

CHORUS
PART B
CHORUS 2
PART P
CHORUS 3
PART V
PART M
OUTRO
OUTRO 2
7 groovesAMKPB+2Fill into the next barFill that ends a sectionInto the next partStop / hitRest

Questions

What BPM is Headless Cross?

88 BPM, in 4/4, with the time kept in thirty-second 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 Headless Cross hard to play on drums?

79 out of 100: demanding, mostly on the independence between the hands and the feet. The beat itself is 47 out of 100; the rest of the number is everything around it.

How long is the drum part?

143 bars, about 6:30 at the written tempo. The course breaks it into 55 exercises over 17 sittings, about 25 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 Headless Cross?

16 fills to learn, played 28 times: bars 4, 12, 20, 28, 36, 38 and 22 more.

READ OFF THE SCORE ITSELF · 143 BARS ANALYSED
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