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I Am Ahab · Mastodon

EXERCISE 15 OF 58
Join Part D to Part G (bars 27-29)
83 / 128 BARS COVERED
0 / 58 PASSED · 3 BARS LIT · IN THE PART D, PART G
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
GROOVE · 18
FILL · 7
LAND · 7
RUN · 2
JOIN · 10
LINK · 5
SECTION · 8
WHOLE SONG · 1
ABOUT THIS DRUM PART

How to play I Am Ahab on drums

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.

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

TEMPO
135 BPM
TIME
3/4
BARS
128
LENGTH
2:51
DIFFICULTY
81/100

hi-hat through bars 1-12, snare through bars 13-16, hi-hat through bars 17-24, snare through bars 25-28, ride through bars 29-44 and hi-hat through bars 45-68, and 8 more changes after that.

The beat

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.

    45
    1...........2...........3...........
CC |x-----------------------------------|
HH |------o-----o-----o-----o-----o-----|
SD |------------------x-----------------|
BD |x-----x--x--x--x--------x-----x-----|
I Am Ahab -- the groove · x hit · o open hi-hat · g ghost note · r cross-stick · X accent

The fills

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

What the course does

It cuts the song into 50 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 -- A -- 1 exercise, about 17 minutes.
  2. The grooves the song is built on -- AB -- 1 exercise, about 19 minutes.
  3. The grooves the song is built on -- M -- 2 exercises, about 28 minutes.
  4. Through the Chorus -- 2 exercises, about 20 minutes.
  5. Through the Chorus and Part D -- 3 exercises, about 22 minutes.
  6. Through Part D -- 2 exercises, about 22 minutes.
  7. Through Part G -- 3 exercises, about 26 minutes.
  8. Through Part D and Part G -- 3 exercises, about 28 minutes. Open above.
  9. and 12 more sittings after that.
START THE COURSE ↑

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