ABOUT THIS DRUM PART

How to play Mentally Blind on drums

155 bars of 6/4 -- not four -- at 209 BPM, 4:01 of playing on crash, ride, hi-hat, snare, high tom, mid tom, floor tom and kick.

83 out of 100. Hard, and what makes it hard is the independence between the hands and the feet.

TEMPO: 209 BPM
TIME: 6/4
BARS: 155
LENGTH: 4:01
DIFFICULTY: 83/100

toms through bar 1, ride through bars 2-13, hi-hat through bars 14-22, ride through bars 23-25, hi-hat through bars 26-39 and ride through bars 40-55, and 6 more changes after that.

The beat

The beat the song is built on is a 2-bar phrase, played through bars 2-8, 10-12 and 97-103 -- 15.3% of every bar the kit plays. This one moves around more than most: the beat is where to start, not the whole job.

    2                                                                        3
    1...........2...........3...........4...........5...........6........... 1...........2...........3...........4...........5...........6...........
CC |x-----------------------------------------------------x-----------------|------------------------------------------------------------x-----------|
RD |------x-----x-----x-----x-----x-----x-----x-----x-----------x-----x-----|x-----x-----x-----x-----x-----x-----x-----x-----x-----x-----------x-----|
SD |------------------x-----------------------------------x-----------------|------------------x-----------------------------------x-----------x-----|
BD |x-----------x-----------------------x--x--x-----x-----------------------|x-----------x-----------------------x--x--x-----x-----------x-----------|

Mentally Blind -- the groove · x hit · o open hi-hat · g ghost note · r cross-stick · X accent

The fills

11 fills to learn, played 14 times: bars 1, 15, 17, 19, 21, 31 and 8 more.

What the course does

It cuts the song into 51 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.

The grooves the song is built on -- B -- 4 exercises, about 31 minutes.
The grooves the song is built on -- F -- 5 exercises, about 25 minutes.
The grooves the song is built on -- AN -- 1 exercise, about 21 minutes.
Through Part B and Part F -- 4 exercises, about 30 minutes.
Through Part F -- 3 exercises, about 11 minutes. Open above.
Through Part F and Part O -- 2 exercises, about 28 minutes.
Through Part O and Part P -- 5 exercises, about 31 minutes.
Through Part O and Part P -- 4 exercises, about 16 minutes.
and 9 more sittings after that.

START THE COURSE ↑

Questions

What BPM is Mentally Blind?

209 BPM, in 6/4, with the time kept in thirty-second notes. At that speed the thirty-second notes are the whole difficulty, so the room will take it down to a quarter of it and climb back.

Is Mentally Blind hard to play on drums?

83 out of 100. Hard, and what makes it hard is the independence between the hands and the feet. The beat itself is 77 out of 100; the rest of the number is everything around it.

How long is the drum part?

155 bars, about 4:01 at the written tempo. The course breaks it into 51 exercises over 17 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 Mentally Blind?

11 fills to learn, played 14 times: bars 1, 15, 17, 19, 21, 31 and 8 more.

READ OFF THE SCORE ITSELF · 155 BARS ANALYSED