← SONGS

Mahakala · Crystal Lake

EXERCISE 1 OF 67
Groove AD -- Chorus (a two-bar phrase)
0 / 129 BARS COVERED
0 / 67 PASSED · 18 BARS LIT · IN THE CHORUS, OUTRO 2
COUNT-IN
PART B
PART I
PART Q
PART AB
CHORUS
PART AH
OUTRO
OUTRO 2
12 groovesADIAHBE+7Fill into the next barFill that ends a sectionInto the next partStop / hitRest
GROOVE · 13
FILL · 13
LAND · 13
RUN · 3
JOIN · 13
LINK · 4
SECTION · 7
WHOLE SONG · 1
ABOUT THIS DRUM PART

How to play Mahakala on drums

129 bars of 4/4 at 143 BPM, about 3:37 of playing, on crash, hi-hat, snare, mid tom, floor tom and kick.

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

TEMPO
143 BPM
TIME
4/4
BARS
129
LENGTH
3:37
DIFFICULTY
66/100

silence through bars 1-8, hi-hat through bars 9-14, toms through bars 15-16, hi-hat through bars 17-24, toms through bars 25-28 and hi-hat through bars 29-37, and 6 more changes after that.

The beat

The beat the song is built on is a 2-bar phrase, played through bars 81-83, 85-87 and 113-115, and 3 more places -- 15.5% of every bar the kit plays. This one moves around more than most: the beat is where to start, not the whole job.

    81                                               82
    1...........2...........3...........4........... 1...........2...........3...........4...........
CC |x-----------x-----------x-----------x-----------|x-----------x-----------x-----------x-----------|
SD |------------------------x-----------------------|------------------------x-----------------------|
BD |x-----x--x-----x--x-----------x--x-----x--x-----|x-----x--x-----x--x-----x--x--x--x--x--x--x--x--|
Mahakala -- the groove · x hit · o open hi-hat · g ghost note · r cross-stick · X accent

The fills

13 fills to learn, played 18 times: bars 24, 25, 26, 28, 36, 40 and 12 more.

What the course does

It cuts the song into 53 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 -- AD -- 1 exercise, about 15 minutes.
  2. The grooves the song is built on -- I -- 1 exercise, about 18 minutes.
  3. The grooves the song is built on -- AH -- 5 exercises, about 31 minutes.
  4. Through Part B -- 1 exercise, about 18 minutes.
  5. Through Part B -- 1 exercise, about 17 minutes.
  6. Through Part B and Part I -- 3 exercises, about 27 minutes.
  7. Bars 16-58 -- 4 exercises, about 30 minutes.
  8. Bars 27-33 -- 4 exercises, about 17 minutes.
  9. and 10 more sittings after that.
START THE COURSE ↑

Questions

What BPM is Mahakala?

143 BPM, in 4/4, 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 Mahakala hard to play on drums?

66 out of 100: demanding, mostly on the independence between the hands and the feet. The beat itself is 55 out of 100; the rest of the number is everything around it.

How long is the drum part?

129 bars, about 3:37 at the written tempo. The course breaks it into 53 exercises over 18 sittings, about 25 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 Mahakala?

13 fills to learn, played 18 times: bars 24, 25, 26, 28, 36, 40 and 12 more.

READ OFF THE SCORE ITSELF · 129 BARS ANALYSED