Ligature Marks · Meshuggah

192 bars of 4/4 at 150 BPM, about 5:07 of playing, on crash, snare, high tom, mid tom, floor tom, kick and hi-hat foot.

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

TEMPO

150 BPM

TIME

4/4

BARS

192

LENGTH

5:07

DIFFICULTY

48/100

snare through bars 1-31, toms through bars 32-64, snare through bars 65-79, toms through bars 80-101, snare through bars 102-103 and toms through bars 104-105, and 10 more changes after that.

The beat the song is built on is a 2-bar phrase, played through bars 145-146, 149 and 152-154, and 9 more places -- 13.5% of every bar the kit plays. This one moves around more than most: the beat is where to start, not the whole job.

    145              146
    1e+a2e+a3e+a4e+a 1e+a2e+a3e+a4e+a
CC |x---------------|----------------|
SD |--------x-------|--------x-------|
T2 |----x-x-----x---|x-x---x-----x-x-|
FT |----x-x-----x---|x-x---x-----x-x-|
BD |x---x-x-----x---|x-x---x-----x-x-|
HF |x---x---x---x---|x---x---x---x---|

11 fills to learn, played 67 times: bars 16, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36 and 61 more.

It cuts the song into 43 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 -- AQ, AS -- 2 exercises, about 24 minutes.
2. The grooves the song is built on -- B -- 2 exercises, about 25 minutes.
3. Through Part C -- 3 exercises, about 27 minutes.
4. Through Part C and Part B -- 3 exercises, about 21 minutes.
5. Through Part B -- 3 exercises, about 19 minutes. Open above.
6. Through Part B and the Chorus -- 3 exercises, about 27 minutes.
7. Through the Chorus -- 3 exercises, about 43 minutes.
8. Bars 64-96 -- 4 exercises, about 31 minutes.
9. and 5 more sittings after that.