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Nightmare Heaven · Arcturus

EXERCISE 3 OF 25
Groove U -- Part U (a two-bar phrase)
18 / 124 BARS COVERED
0 / 25 PASSED · 9 BARS LIT · IN THE PART U
CHORUS
PART U
PART G
PART AC
OUTRO
BREAK
6 groovesS6OACUG+1Fill into the next barFill that ends a sectionInto the next partStop / hitRest
GROOVE · 6
FILL · 2
LAND · 2
RUN · 2
JOIN · 4
LINK · 3
SECTION · 5
WHOLE SONG · 1
ABOUT THIS DRUM PART

How to play Nightmare Heaven on drums

124 bars of 8/4 -- not four -- at 160 BPM, 5:40 of playing on crash, ride, hi-hat, snare, kick and hi-hat foot.

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

TEMPO
160 BPM
TIME
8/4
BARS
124
LENGTH
5:40
DIFFICULTY
48/100

ride through bars 1-16, hi-hat through bars 17-36, ride through bars 37-46, hi-hat through bars 47-64, ride through bars 65-73 and silence through bars 74-124.

The beat

The beat the song is built on is a 2-bar phrase, played through bars 47-64 -- 25% of every bar the kit plays. That is the spine of it; everything else is what happens around it.

    47                                               48
    1.....2.....3.....4.....5.....6.....7.....8..... 1.....2.....3.....4.....5.....6.....7.....8.....
HH |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--o-----x--x--x--|
SD |------------x-----------------------x-----------|------------x-----------------------x-----------|
BD |x--------x-----------x--x--------x-----------x--|x--------x-----------x--x--------x-----------x--|
HF |------------------------------------------------|------------------------------------x-----------|
Nightmare Heaven -- the groove · x hit · o open hi-hat · g ghost note · r cross-stick · X accent

The fills

2 fills to learn, played 18 times: bars 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 and 12 more.

What the course does

It cuts the song into 22 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 -- AC -- 2 exercises, about 20 minutes.
  2. The grooves the song is built on -- U, AE -- 2 exercises, about 30 minutes. Open above.
  3. Bars 21-38 -- 2 exercises, about 30 minutes.
  4. Through the Chorus -- 4 exercises, about 30 minutes.
  5. Through the Chorus and Part U -- 4 exercises, about 30 minutes.
  6. Bars 33-68 -- 8 exercises, about 35 minutes.
  7. The whole song -- 3 exercises, about 19 minutes.
START THE COURSE ↑

Questions

What BPM is Nightmare Heaven?

160 BPM, in 8/4, 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 Nightmare Heaven hard to play on drums?

48 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 53 out of 100; the rest of the number is everything around it.

How long is the drum part?

124 bars, about 5:40 at the written tempo. The course breaks it into 22 exercises over 7 sittings, about 28 minutes each.

What do I need on the kit?

crash, ride, hi-hat, snare, 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 Nightmare Heaven?

2 fills to learn, played 18 times: bars 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 and 12 more.

READ OFF THE SCORE ITSELF · 124 BARS ANALYSED