ABOUT THIS DRUM PART

How to play Nightmare on drums

209 bars of 4/4 at 130 BPM, about 6:00 of playing, on crash, ride, hi-hat, snare, high tom, mid tom, floor tom and kick.

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

TEMPO: 130 BPM
TIME: 4/4
BARS: 209
LENGTH: 6:00
DIFFICULTY: 75/100

silence through bars 1-28, toms through bars 29-32, ride through bars 33-42, kick and crashes through bars 43-45, hi-hat through bars 46-64 and snare through bars 65-66, and 20 more changes after that.

The beat

The beat the song is built on is a 2-bar phrase, played through bars 67-73, 98-104 and 106-112, and 1 more place -- 15.6% of every bar the kit plays. This one moves around more than most: the beat is where to start, not the whole job.

    67                               68
    1.......2.......3.......4....... 1.......2.......3.......4.......
CC |x-------------------------------|--------------------------------|
RD |----x---x---x---x---x---x---x---|x---x---x---x---x---x-x---x-x---|
SD |--------x---------------x-------|--------x---------------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-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-|

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

The fills

21 fills to learn, played 47 times: bars 36, 40, 43, 47, 48, 49 and 41 more.

What the course does

It cuts the song into 65 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 -- S -- 1 exercise, about 21 minutes.
The grooves the song is built on -- AF, E -- 4 exercises, about 31 minutes.
Through Part A -- 2 exercises, about 21 minutes.
Through Part E -- 5 exercises, about 29 minutes.
Through Part I and Part L -- 2 exercises, about 30 minutes. Open above.
Bars 47-88 -- 6 exercises, about 27 minutes.
Through Part L and Part O -- 4 exercises, about 28 minutes.
Bars 58-75 -- 3 exercises, about 24 minutes.
and 13 more sittings after that.

START THE COURSE ↑

Questions

What BPM is Nightmare?

130 BPM, in 4/4, with the time kept in thirty-second notes. The room plays it at any tempo from a quarter of that up to the written one, against the record where the record can follow.

Is Nightmare hard to play on drums?

75 out of 100: demanding, mostly on the independence between the hands and the feet. The beat itself is 89 out of 100; the rest of the number is everything around it.

How long is the drum part?

209 bars, about 6:00 at the written tempo. The course breaks it into 65 exercises over 21 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 Nightmare?

21 fills to learn, played 47 times: bars 36, 40, 43, 47, 48, 49 and 41 more.

READ OFF THE SCORE ITSELF · 209 BARS ANALYSED