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N9 · Devin Townsend

EXERCISE 20 OF 40
Groove P
113 / 204 BARS COVERED
0 / 40 PASSED · 3 BARS LIT · IN THE CHORUS 2
CHORUS
CHORUS 2
CHORUS 3
PART S
OUTRO 2
9 groovesAS13SLZ+4Fill into the next barFill that ends a sectionInto the next partStop / hitRest
GROOVE · 9
FILL · 8
LAND · 8
RUN · 1
JOIN · 6
LINK · 1
SECTION · 6
WHOLE SONG · 1
ABOUT THIS DRUM PART

How to play N9 on drums

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.

60 out of 100, a step up from a first song, and the work is in the independence between the hands and the feet.

TEMPO
249 BPM
TIME
6/4
BARS
204
LENGTH
4:10
DIFFICULTY
60/100

snare through bars 1-2, ride through bars 3-4, snare through bars 5-6, ride through bars 7-8, snare through bars 9-10 and ride through bars 11-12, and 27 more changes after that.

The beat

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.

    1
    1e+a2e+a3e+a4e+a5e+a6e+a
CC |x-----x-----x-----x-----|
SD |------x-----------x-----|
BD |x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-|
N9 -- the groove · x hit · o open hi-hat · g ghost note · r cross-stick · X accent

The fills

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

What the course does

It cuts the song into 31 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 -- A -- 3 exercises, about 20 minutes.
  2. The grooves the song is built on -- S, E -- 3 exercises, about 32 minutes.
  3. Through the Chorus -- 3 exercises, about 26 minutes.
  4. Bars 21-27 -- 5 exercises, about 29 minutes.
  5. Through Part L and the Chorus 2 -- 5 exercises, about 18 minutes.
  6. Through the Chorus 2 -- 3 exercises, about 20 minutes. Open above.
  7. Through the Chorus 3 and Part S -- 4 exercises, about 30 minutes.
  8. Bars 114-135 -- 5 exercises, about 30 minutes.
  9. and 2 more sittings after that.
START THE COURSE ↑

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