N9 · Devin Townsend

204 bars of 6/4 -- not four -- at 249 BPM, 4:10 of playing on crash, ride, hi-hat, snare, high tom, mid tom, floor tom, kick and hi-hat foot.

ProgressiveElectronic150 BPM and upShuffle / triplet
TEMPO
249 BPM
TIME
6/4
BARS
204
LENGTH
4:10
DIFFICULTY
60/100
THE BEAT

One bar, and 33% of the song

The beat the song is built on is one bar, played through bars 1-2, 5-6 and 9-10, and 9 more places -- 32.6% of every bar the kit plays. That is the spine of it; everything else is what happens around it.

LOOP · 249 BPM
N9 · BAR 1
THE BEAT, WRITTEN OUT →
THE FILLS

Where it comes off the beat

8 fills to learn, played 26 times: bars 3, 4, 7, 8, 11, 12 and 20 more.

LOOP · 249 BPM
BARS 3-4 · LANDS ON BAR 5 · PLAYED 8 TIMES
LOOP · 249 BPM
BARS 17-20 · LANDS ON BAR 21 · PLAYED 8 TIMES
LOOP · 249 BPM
BAR 26 · LANDS ON BAR 27 · PLAYED 2 TIMES
LOOP · 249 BPM
BARS 33-34 · LANDS ON BAR 35 · PLAYED 4 TIMES

4 more fills are written out on the fills page.

EVERY FILL, WRITTEN OUT →
THE SHAPE

How the song is built

204 bars across 13 sections: 103 keep time, 26 are fills, 5 are stops and 60 are silent. The longest unbroken stretch of time is bars 77-94.

CHORUS
CHORUS 2
CHORUS 3
PART S
OUTRO 2
9 groovesAS13SLZ+4Fill into the next barFill that ends a sectionInto the next partStop / hitRest

Questions

What BPM is N9?

249 BPM, in 6/4, 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 N9 hard to play on drums?

60 out of 100, a step up from a first song, and the work is in the independence between the hands and the feet. The beat itself is 35 out of 100; the rest of the number is everything around it.

How long is the drum part?

204 bars, about 4:10 at the written tempo. The course breaks it into 31 exercises over 10 sittings, about 26 minutes each.

What do I need on the kit?

crash, ride, hi-hat, snare, high tom, mid tom, floor tom, kick and hi-hat foot. That is most of a full kit; the part moves around it rather than sitting in one place.

How many fills are in N9?

8 fills to learn, played 26 times: bars 3, 4, 7, 8, 11, 12 and 20 more.

READ OFF THE SCORE ITSELF · 204 BARS ANALYSED
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