← SONGS

Killchain · Bolt Thrower

EXERCISE 20 OF 43
Join Part A to Chorus 2 (bars 70-72)
108 / 132 BARS COVERED
0 / 43 PASSED · 3 BARS LIT · IN THE PART A, CHORUS 2
PART A
CHORUS
PART H
PART A
CHORUS 2
PART H
PART D
OUTRO
6 groovesEHADS2+1Fill into the next barFill that ends a sectionInto the next partStop / hitRest
GROOVE · 6
FILL · 8
LAND · 8
RUN · 3
JOIN · 7
LINK · 5
SECTION · 5
WHOLE SONG · 1
ABOUT THIS DRUM PART

How to play Killchain on drums

132 bars at 160 BPM -- fast, and 3:18 of it without a break -- on crash, hi-hat, snare, mid tom, floor tom and kick.

69 out of 100: demanding, mostly on the independence between the hands and the feet.

TEMPO
160 BPM
TIME
4/4
BARS
132
LENGTH
3:18
DIFFICULTY
69/100

hi-hat through bars 1-16, silence through bars 17-21, hi-hat through bars 22-61, snare through bars 62-63, hi-hat through bars 64-68 and toms through bars 69-71, and 4 more changes after that.

The beat

The beat the song is built on is one bar, played through bars 22-24, 26-28 and 31-32, and 13 more places -- 26% of every bar the kit plays. That is the spine of it; everything else is what happens around it.

    22
    1e+a2e+a3e+a4e+a
CC |x---------------|
HH |--o-o-o-o-o-o-o-|
SD |----x-------x---|
BD |x-------x-------|
Killchain -- the groove · x hit · o open hi-hat · g ghost note · r cross-stick · X accent

The fills

8 fills to learn, played 20 times: bars 15, 37, 39, 45, 61, 67 and 14 more.

What the course does

It cuts the song into 34 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 -- D, E -- 3 exercises, about 34 minutes.
  2. The grooves the song is built on -- A -- 4 exercises, about 27 minutes.
  3. Bars 14-43 -- 5 exercises, about 37 minutes.
  4. Bars 45-72 -- 7 exercises, about 29 minutes.
  5. Through Part A and the Chorus 2 -- 4 exercises, about 17 minutes. Open above.
  6. Through the Chorus 2 and Part H -- 3 exercises, about 27 minutes.
  7. Through Part H and Part D -- 7 exercises, about 30 minutes.
  8. Bars 97-128 -- 6 exercises, about 35 minutes.
  9. and 1 more sittings after that.
START THE COURSE ↑

Questions

What BPM is Killchain?

160 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 Killchain hard to play on drums?

69 out of 100: demanding, mostly on the independence between the hands and the feet. The beat itself is 37 out of 100; the rest of the number is everything around it.

How long is the drum part?

132 bars, about 3:18 at the written tempo. The course breaks it into 34 exercises over 9 sittings, about 29 minutes each.

What do I need on the kit?

crash, hi-hat, snare, 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 Killchain?

8 fills to learn, played 20 times: bars 15, 37, 39, 45, 61, 67 and 14 more.

READ OFF THE SCORE ITSELF · 132 BARS ANALYSED