← SONGS

Holy Light · Stratovarius

EXERCISE 32 OF 37
Groove AH (a two-bar phrase)
126 / 211 BARS COVERED
0 / 37 PASSED · 4 BARS LIT · IN THE OUTRO
BREAK 7
CHORUS 5
PART X
OUTRO
15 groovesJS13XADA+10Fill into the next barFill that ends a sectionInto the next partStop / hitRest
GROOVE · 6
FILL · 6
LAND · 6
RUN · 2
JOIN · 8
LINK · 2
SECTION · 6
WHOLE SONG · 1
ABOUT THIS DRUM PART

How to play Holy Light on drums

211 bars at 170 BPM -- fast, and 5:01 of it without a break -- on crash, ride, hi-hat, snare, high tom, mid tom, floor tom and kick.

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

TEMPO
170 BPM
TIME
4/4
BARS
211
LENGTH
5:01
DIFFICULTY
64/100

kick and crashes through bars 1-15, hi-hat through bars 16-21, toms through bars 22-23, hi-hat through bars 24-33, snare through bars 34-36 and kick and crashes through bars 37-40, and 14 more changes after that.

The beat

The beat the song is built on is one bar, played through bars 28-31, 41-44 and 106-108, and 4 more places -- 24.7% of every bar the kit plays. This one moves around more than most: the beat is where to start, not the whole job.

    28
    1e+a2e+a3e+a4e+a
CC |x---------------|
HH |--o-o-o-o-o-o-o-|
SD |--x---x---x---x-|
BD |xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx|
Holy Light -- the groove · x hit · o open hi-hat · g ghost note · r cross-stick · X accent

The fills

6 fills to learn, played 14 times: bars 21, 22, 23, 32, 109, 112 and 8 more.

What the course does

It cuts the song into 30 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 -- J -- 4 exercises, about 32 minutes.
  2. The grooves the song is built on -- X, AD -- 3 exercises, about 29 minutes.
  3. Through Part D -- 1 exercise, about 14 minutes.
  4. Through Part D and Part I -- 4 exercises, about 31 minutes.
  5. Bars 22-110 -- 7 exercises, about 31 minutes.
  6. Bars 112-122 -- 7 exercises, about 27 minutes.
  7. Bars 152-191 -- 5 exercises, about 24 minutes.
  8. Through the Outro and the Break 8 -- 5 exercises, about 26 minutes. Open above.
  9. and 1 more sittings after that.
START THE COURSE ↑

Questions

What BPM is Holy Light?

170 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 Holy Light hard to play on drums?

64 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 84 out of 100; the rest of the number is everything around it.

How long is the drum part?

211 bars, about 5:01 at the written tempo. The course breaks it into 30 exercises over 9 sittings, about 25 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 Holy Light?

6 fills to learn, played 14 times: bars 21, 22, 23, 32, 109, 112 and 8 more.

READ OFF THE SCORE ITSELF · 211 BARS ANALYSED