← SONGS

Marathon · Rush

EXERCISE 21 OF 105
2-bar fill at bar 55
120 / 254 BARS COVERED
0 / 105 PASSED · 2 BARS LIT · IN THE PART I
PART B
PART I
CHORUS
CHORUS 2
PART AK
PART AP
OUTRO
OUTRO 2
12 groovesOAKAPBI+7Fill into the next barFill that ends a sectionInto the next partStop / hitRest
GROOVE · 18
FILL · 25
LAND · 25
RUN · 3
JOIN · 13
LINK · 9
SECTION · 11
WHOLE SONG · 1
ABOUT THIS DRUM PART

How to play Marathon on drums

254 bars at 158 BPM -- fast, and 6:10 of it without a break -- on crash, ride, hi-hat, snare, high tom, mid tom, floor tom and kick.

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

TEMPO
158 BPM
TIME
4/4
BARS
254
LENGTH
6:10
DIFFICULTY
66/100

kick and crashes through bar 1, toms through bars 2-12, hi-hat through bars 13-70, toms through bars 71-73, kick and crashes through bars 74-78 and hi-hat through bars 79-112, and 8 more changes after that.

The beat

The beat the song is built on is one bar, played through bars 57-63, 65-70 and 99-105, and 11 more places -- 24.4% of every bar the kit plays. This one moves around more than most: the beat is where to start, not the whole job.

    59
    1e+a2e+a3e+a4e+a
CC |x---------------|
HH |x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-|
SD |----x-------x---|
BD |x---------x---g-|
Marathon -- the groove · x hit · o open hi-hat · g ghost note · r cross-stick · X accent

The fills

25 fills to learn, played 61 times: bars 16, 28, 55, 56, 64, 71 and 55 more.

What the course does

It cuts the song into 79 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 -- O -- 1 exercise, about 15 minutes.
  2. The grooves the song is built on -- I -- 1 exercise, about 16 minutes.
  3. The grooves the song is built on -- H -- 2 exercises, about 24 minutes.
  4. Through Part B -- 2 exercises, about 29 minutes.
  5. Through Part B -- 4 exercises, about 30 minutes.
  6. Bars 17-30 -- 4 exercises, about 29 minutes.
  7. Bars 29-50 -- 6 exercises, about 28 minutes.
  8. Through Part I and the Chorus -- 8 exercises, about 29 minutes. Open above.
  9. and 17 more sittings after that.
START THE COURSE ↑

Questions

What BPM is Marathon?

158 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 Marathon hard to play on drums?

66 out of 100: demanding, mostly on the independence between the hands and the feet. The beat itself is 51 out of 100; the rest of the number is everything around it.

How long is the drum part?

254 bars, about 6:10 at the written tempo. The course breaks it into 79 exercises over 25 sittings, about 26 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 Marathon?

25 fills to learn, played 61 times: bars 16, 28, 55, 56, 64, 71 and 55 more.

READ OFF THE SCORE ITSELF · 254 BARS ANALYSED