← SONGS

Headless Cross · Black Sabbath

EXERCISE 9 OF 72
Groove F
82 / 143 BARS COVERED
0 / 72 PASSED · 6 BARS LIT · IN THE CHORUS, CHORUS 3, OUTRO 2
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
GROOVE · 10
FILL · 16
LAND · 16
RUN · 2
JOIN · 11
LINK · 9
SECTION · 7
WHOLE SONG · 1
ABOUT THIS DRUM PART

How to play Headless Cross on drums

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.

79 out of 100: demanding, mostly on the independence between the hands and the feet.

TEMPO
88 BPM
TIME
4/4
BARS
143
LENGTH
6:30
DIFFICULTY
79/100

hi-hat through bars 1-36, ride through bars 37-44, hi-hat through bars 45-56, ride through bars 57-64, hi-hat through bars 65-68 and ride through bars 69-72, and 7 more changes after that.

The beat

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.

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

The fills

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

What the course does

It cuts the song into 55 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 -- A -- 3 exercises, about 20 minutes.
  2. The grooves the song is built on -- B -- 3 exercises, about 20 minutes.
  3. The grooves the song is built on -- M -- 2 exercises, about 24 minutes.
  4. Through the Chorus and Part B -- 3 exercises, about 26 minutes. Open above.
  5. Through Part K -- 3 exercises, about 26 minutes.
  6. Bars 36-61 -- 5 exercises, about 30 minutes.
  7. Through Part B and Part P -- 4 exercises, about 28 minutes.
  8. Through Part B and Part P -- 4 exercises, about 18 minutes.
  9. and 9 more sittings after that.
START THE COURSE ↑

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