I Am Ahab · Mastodon

128 bars of 3/4 -- not four -- at 135 BPM, 2:51 of playing on crash, ride, hi-hat, snare, high tom, mid tom, floor tom and kick.

ProgressiveMetal120 to 149 BPMShuffle / tripletAdvanced
TEMPO
135 BPM
TIME
3/4
BARS
128
LENGTH
2:51
DIFFICULTY
81/100
THE BEAT

One bar, and 27% of the song

The beat the song is built on is one bar, played through bars 1-2, 4-5 and 7-8, and 15 more places -- 26.6% of every bar the kit plays. That is the spine of it; everything else is what happens around it.

LOOP · 135 BPM
I AM AHAB · BAR 45
THE BEAT, WRITTEN OUT →
THE FILLS

Where it comes off the beat

7 fills to learn, played 11 times: bars 32, 36, 48, 78, 82, 110 and 5 more.

LOOP · 135 BPM
BAR 32 · LANDS ON BAR 33 · PLAYED 2 TIMES
LOOP · 135 BPM
BAR 48 · LANDS ON BAR 49 · PLAYED 2 TIMES
LOOP · 135 BPM
BAR 78 · LANDS ON BAR 79
LOOP · 135 BPM
BAR 82 · LANDS ON BAR 83

3 more fills are written out on the fills page.

EVERY FILL, WRITTEN OUT →
THE SHAPE

How the song is built

128 bars across 11 sections: 102 keep time and 11 are fills. The longest unbroken stretch of time is bars 49-67.

CHORUS
PART D
PART G
CHORUS 2
PART T
PART AB
CHORUS 3
8 groovesADABTG+3Fill into the next barFill that ends a sectionInto the next partStop / hitRest

Questions

What BPM is I Am Ahab?

135 BPM, in 3/4, 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 I Am Ahab hard to play on drums?

81 out of 100. Hard, and what makes it hard is how many notes a second it asks for. The beat itself is 68 out of 100; the rest of the number is everything around it.

How long is the drum part?

128 bars, about 2:51 at the written tempo. The course breaks it into 50 exercises over 20 sittings, about 24 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 I Am Ahab?

7 fills to learn, played 11 times: bars 32, 36, 48, 78, 82, 110 and 5 more.

READ OFF THE SCORE ITSELF · 128 BARS ANALYSED
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