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Holier Than Thou · Metallica

EXERCISE 1 OF 23
Groove E -- Chorus
0 / 164 BARS COVERED
0 / 23 PASSED · 98 BARS LIT · IN THE CHORUS, OUTRO, OUTRO 2
PART B
CHORUS
OUTRO
OUTRO 2
3 groovesEBMFill into the next barFill that ends a sectionInto the next partStop / hitRest
GROOVE · 8
FILL · 3
LAND · 3
RUN · 1
JOIN · 3
LINK · 1
SECTION · 3
WHOLE SONG · 1
ABOUT THIS DRUM PART

How to play Holier Than Thou on drums

164 bars at 175 BPM -- fast, and 3:42 of it without a break -- on crash, hi-hat, snare, mid tom, floor tom, kick and hi-hat foot.

56 out of 100, a step up from a first song, and the work is in the independence between the hands and the feet.

TEMPO
175 BPM
TIME
4/4
BARS
164
LENGTH
3:42
DIFFICULTY
56/100

kick and crashes through bar 1, toms through bars 2-25, hi-hat through bars 26-44, toms through bars 45-46, hi-hat through bars 47-79 and toms through bars 80-81, and 6 more changes after that.

The beat

The beat the song is built on is one bar, played through bars 26-33, 36-43 and 48-55, and 13 more places -- 59.8% of every bar the kit plays. Learn that one and most of the song is already under your hands.

    27
    1e+a2e+a3e+a4e+a
HH |o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-|
SD |----x-------x---|
BD |x-------x-------|
Holier Than Thou -- the groove · x hit · o open hi-hat · g ghost note · r cross-stick · X accent

The fills

3 fills to learn, played 10 times: bars 13, 21, 103, 104, 118, 160 and 4 more.

What the course does

It cuts the song into 19 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 -- E, B -- 3 exercises, about 31 minutes.
  2. Through Part B -- 4 exercises, about 23 minutes.
  3. Through Part B and the Chorus -- 3 exercises, about 20 minutes.
  4. Through the Chorus -- 2 exercises, about 21 minutes.
  5. Through the Chorus -- 3 exercises, about 21 minutes.
  6. Bars 25-140 -- 5 exercises, about 30 minutes.
  7. The whole song -- 3 exercises, about 19 minutes.
START THE COURSE ↑

Questions

What BPM is Holier Than Thou?

175 BPM, in 4/4, with the time kept in sixteenth notes. At that speed the sixteenth notes are the whole difficulty, so the room will take it down to a quarter of it and climb back.

Is Holier Than Thou hard to play on drums?

56 out of 100, a step up from a first song, and the work is in the independence between the hands and the feet. The beat itself is 39 out of 100; the rest of the number is everything around it.

How long is the drum part?

164 bars, about 3:42 at the written tempo. The course breaks it into 19 exercises over 7 sittings, about 24 minutes each.

What do I need on the kit?

crash, hi-hat, snare, 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 Holier Than Thou?

3 fills to learn, played 10 times: bars 13, 21, 103, 104, 118, 160 and 4 more.

READ OFF THE SCORE ITSELF · 164 BARS ANALYSED