ABOUT THIS DRUM PART

How to play Heaving Earth on drums

126 bars of 4/4 at 128 BPM, about 4:00 of playing, on crash, ride, snare, high tom, mid tom, floor tom and kick.

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

TEMPO: 128 BPM
TIME: 4/4
BARS: 126
LENGTH: 4:00
DIFFICULTY: 85/100

snare through bars 1-9, ride through bars 10-24, snare through bars 25-28, ride through bars 29-32, snare through bars 33-40 and ride through bars 41-44, and 14 more changes after that.

The beat

The beat the song is built on is a 2-bar phrase, played through bars 10-12, 17-19 and 111-113, and 1 more place -- 9.6% of every bar the kit plays. This one moves around more than most: the beat is where to start, not the whole job.

    10                                                               11
    1...............2...............3...............4............... 1...............2...............3...............4...............
CC |----------------------------------------------------------------|--------------------------------x----x-----x----x---------------|
RD |--x---x---x---x---x---x---x---x---x---x---x---x---x---x---------|--x---x---x---x---x---x---x-------------------------------------|
SD |x---x---x---x---x---x---x---x---x---x---x---x---x---x---x-x-x-x-|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-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-|x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x----x-----x----x---------------|

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

The fills

10 fills to learn, played 18 times: bars 2, 8, 15, 22, 36, 48 and 12 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.

The grooves the song is built on -- E -- 1 exercise, about 19 minutes.
The grooves the song is built on -- AK -- 1 exercise, about 15 minutes.
The grooves the song is built on -- N -- 1 exercise, about 20 minutes.
Through Part A -- 3 exercises, about 27 minutes.
Through Part A -- 4 exercises, about 31 minutes.
Through Part A and Part E -- 3 exercises, about 27 minutes.
Through Part A and Part E -- 2 exercises, about 27 minutes.
Through Part E -- 3 exercises, about 13 minutes. Open above.
and 14 more sittings after that.

START THE COURSE ↑

Questions

What BPM is Heaving Earth?

128 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 Heaving Earth hard to play on drums?

85 out of 100. Hard, and what makes it hard is how many notes a second it asks for. The beat itself is 79 out of 100; the rest of the number is everything around it.

How long is the drum part?

126 bars, about 4:00 at the written tempo. The course breaks it into 55 exercises over 22 sittings, about 24 minutes each.

What do I need on the kit?

crash, ride, 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 Heaving Earth?

10 fills to learn, played 18 times: bars 2, 8, 15, 22, 36, 48 and 12 more.

READ OFF THE SCORE ITSELF · 126 BARS ANALYSED