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Highway Song · System of a Down

EXERCISE 8 OF 40
Groove C -- Part C
60 / 118 BARS COVERED
0 / 40 PASSED · 14 BARS LIT
CHORUS
VERSE
PART G
VERSE 2
PART G
PART C
PART I
CHORUS 2
PART M
OUTRO
9 groovesBGDIM+4Fill into the next barFill that ends a sectionInto the next partStop / hitRest
GROOVE · 8
FILL · 4
LAND · 4
RUN · 2
JOIN · 10
LINK · 5
SECTION · 6
WHOLE SONG · 1
ABOUT THIS DRUM PART

How to play Highway Song on drums

118 bars of 4/4 at 150 BPM, about 3:09 of playing, on crash, ride, hi-hat, snare, high tom, mid tom, floor tom and kick.

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

TEMPO
150 BPM
TIME
4/4
BARS
118
LENGTH
3:09
DIFFICULTY
73/100

toms through bars 1-4, snare through bars 5-12, hi-hat through bars 13-76, toms through bars 77-78, snare through bars 79-82 and ride through bars 83-90, and 4 more changes after that.

The beat

The beat the song is built on is one bar, played through bars 29-35, 53-59 and 61-67 -- 18.3% of every bar the kit plays. This one moves around more than most: the beat is where to start, not the whole job.

    30
    1e+a2e+a3e+a4e+a
HH |o---o---o---o---|
SD |----x--x-x--x--x|
BD |x--x------x-----|
Highway Song -- the groove · x hit · o open hi-hat · g ghost note · r cross-stick · X accent

The fills

4 fills to learn, played 8 times: bars 28, 52, 77, 78, 82, 86 and 2 more.

What the course does

It cuts the song into 35 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 -- G -- 1 exercise, about 14 minutes.
  2. The grooves the song is built on -- D, B -- 3 exercises, about 35 minutes.
  3. Through Part A and the Chorus -- 3 exercises, about 20 minutes.
  4. Through the Chorus and the Verse -- 4 exercises, about 32 minutes. Open above.
  5. Through the Verse and Part G -- 4 exercises, about 29 minutes.
  6. Bars 25-69 -- 6 exercises, about 29 minutes.
  7. Bars 69-114 -- 4 exercises, about 29 minutes.
  8. Through Part I and the Chorus 2 -- 7 exercises, about 22 minutes.
  9. and 2 more sittings after that.
START THE COURSE ↑

Questions

What BPM is Highway Song?

150 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 Highway Song hard to play on drums?

73 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?

118 bars, about 3:09 at the written tempo. The course breaks it into 35 exercises over 10 sittings, about 26 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 Highway Song?

4 fills to learn, played 8 times: bars 28, 52, 77, 78, 82, 86 and 2 more.

READ OFF THE SCORE ITSELF · 118 BARS ANALYSED