North Star · Hit The Switch

131 bars at 195 BPM -- fast, and 2:41 of it without a break -- on crash, ride, hi-hat, snare, high tom, mid tom, floor tom, kick and hi-hat foot.

150 BPM and up
TEMPO
195 BPM
TIME
4/4
BARS
131
LENGTH
2:41
DIFFICULTY
84/100
THE BEAT

One bar, and 37% of the song

The beat the song is built on is one bar, played through bars 2-8, 10-15 and 18-24, and 7 more places -- 36.5% of every bar the kit plays. Learn that one and most of the song is already under your hands.

LOOP · 195 BPM
NORTH STAR · BAR 19
THE BEAT, WRITTEN OUT →
THE FILLS

Where it comes off the beat

13 fills to learn, played 27 times: bars 9, 17, 25, 35, 37, 39 and 21 more.

LOOP · 195 BPM
BAR 9 · LANDS ON BAR 10 · PLAYED 2 TIMES
LOOP · 195 BPM
BAR 17 · LANDS ON BAR 18
LOOP · 195 BPM
BAR 25 · LANDS ON BAR 26 · PLAYED 2 TIMES
LOOP · 195 BPM
BAR 35 · LANDS ON BAR 36

9 more fills are written out on the fills page.

EVERY FILL, WRITTEN OUT →
THE SHAPE

How the song is built

131 bars across 10 sections: 86 keep time, 27 are fills, 4 are stops and 5 are silent. The longest unbroken stretch of time is bars 93-102.

CHORUS
PART H
PART M
CHORUS 2
PART H
PART S
CHORUS 4
OUTRO
6 groovesBHMSS9+1Fill into the next barFill that ends a sectionInto the next partStop / hitRest

Questions

What BPM is North Star?

195 BPM, in 4/4, 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 North Star hard to play on drums?

84 out of 100. Hard, and what makes it hard is the independence between the hands and the feet. The beat itself is 74 out of 100; the rest of the number is everything around it.

How long is the drum part?

131 bars, about 2:41 at the written tempo. The course breaks it into 39 exercises over 12 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 North Star?

13 fills to learn, played 27 times: bars 9, 17, 25, 35, 37, 39 and 21 more.

READ OFF THE SCORE ITSELF · 131 BARS ANALYSED
AT THIS LEVEL

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