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Iron · Ensiferum

EXERCISE 20 OF 94
Hold Groove G for 8 bars -- Chorus (bars 9-16)
79 / 177 BARS COVERED
0 / 94 PASSED · 8 BARS LIT · IN THE CHORUS
CHORUS
PART L
PART R
CHORUS 2
PART L
PART AH
PART AK
14 groovesGLAHAKAC+9Fill into the next barFill that ends a sectionInto the next partStop / hitRest
GROOVE · 11
FILL · 22
LAND · 22
RUN · 2
JOIN · 15
LINK · 12
SECTION · 9
WHOLE SONG · 1
ABOUT THIS DRUM PART

How to play Iron on drums

177 bars at 200 BPM -- fast, and 3:31 of it without a break -- on crash, ride, hi-hat, snare, high tom, mid tom, floor tom and kick.

74 out of 100: demanding, mostly on how many notes a second it asks for.

TEMPO
200 BPM
TIME
4/4
BARS
177
LENGTH
3:31
DIFFICULTY
74/100

toms through bars 1-2, snare through bars 3-6, toms through bars 7-8, hi-hat through bars 9-16, ride through bars 17-31 and toms through bars 32-34, and 13 more changes after that.

The beat

The beat the song is built on is one bar, played through bars 9-15, 59-61 and 63-66, and 2 more places -- 11.5% of every bar the kit plays. This one moves around more than most: the beat is where to start, not the whole job.

    9
    1e+a2e+a3e+a4e+a
CC |x---------------|
HH |--o-o-o-o-o-o-o-|
SD |--x---x---x---x-|
BD |x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-|
Iron -- the groove · x hit · o open hi-hat · g ghost note · r cross-stick · X accent

The fills

22 fills to learn, played 33 times: bars 1, 8, 16, 20, 24, 28 and 27 more.

What the course does

It cuts the song into 71 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, L -- 2 exercises, about 30 minutes.
  2. The grooves the song is built on -- AC -- 5 exercises, about 32 minutes.
  3. Bars 1-9 -- 7 exercises, about 25 minutes.
  4. Through the Chorus and Part I -- 5 exercises, about 29 minutes.
  5. Bars 9-28 -- 7 exercises, about 32 minutes. Open above.
  6. Through Part L and Part P -- 5 exercises, about 28 minutes.
  7. Through Part P and Part R -- 7 exercises, about 35 minutes.
  8. Through Part R -- 3 exercises, about 21 minutes.
  9. and 10 more sittings after that.
START THE COURSE ↑

Questions

What BPM is Iron?

200 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 Iron hard to play on drums?

74 out of 100: demanding, mostly on how many notes a second it asks for. The beat itself is 47 out of 100; the rest of the number is everything around it.

How long is the drum part?

177 bars, about 3:31 at the written tempo. The course breaks it into 71 exercises over 18 sittings, about 28 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 Iron?

22 fills to learn, played 33 times: bars 1, 8, 16, 20, 24, 28 and 27 more.

READ OFF THE SCORE ITSELF · 177 BARS ANALYSED