Monkey Cage · Mortal Decay

180 bars of 4/4 at 110 BPM, about 8:05 of playing, on crash, ride, hi-hat, snare, high tom, mid tom, floor tom, kick and hi-hat foot.

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

TEMPO

110 BPM

TIME

4/4

BARS

180

LENGTH

8:05

DIFFICULTY

89/100

toms through bars 1-10, hi-hat through bars 11-29, ride through bars 30-40, hi-hat through bars 41-56, ride through bars 57-61 and hi-hat through bars 62-63, and 7 more changes after that.

The beat the song is built on is one bar, played through bars 11-13, 15-17 and 19-20, and 6 more places -- 12.9% of every bar the kit plays. This one moves around more than most: the beat is where to start, not the whole job.

    12
    1...........2...........3...........4...........5...........6...........
HH |o-----o-----o-----o-----o-----o-----o-----o-----o-----o-----o-----o-----|
SD |------------------------------------x-----------------------------------|
BD |x--x--x--x--x--x--x--x--x--x--x--x--x--x--x--x--x--x--x--x--x--x--x--x--|

13 fills to learn, played 19 times: bars 8, 10, 14, 18, 46, 47 and 13 more.

It cuts the song into 55 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 -- E -- 3 exercises, about 28 minutes.
2. The grooves the song is built on -- AK -- 4 exercises, about 32 minutes. Open above.
3. The grooves the song is built on -- AN -- 3 exercises, about 27 minutes.
4. Bars 1-100 -- 6 exercises, about 30 minutes.
5. Through Part A and Part E -- 7 exercises, about 27 minutes.
6. Bars 11-57 -- 4 exercises, about 30 minutes.
7. Through Part E and Part I -- 3 exercises, about 31 minutes.
8. Through Part I -- 1 exercise, about 14 minutes.
9. and 10 more sittings after that.