Obstacle 1 · Interpol

125 bars of 4/4 at 123 BPM, about 4:04 of playing, on crash, ride, hi-hat, snare, high tom, mid tom, floor tom, kick and hi-hat foot.

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

TEMPO

123 BPM

TIME

4/4

BARS

125

LENGTH

4:04

DIFFICULTY

76/100

silence through bars 1-6, hi-hat through bars 7-36, ride through bars 37-38, toms through bars 39-40, ride through bars 41-43 and hi-hat through bars 44-66, and 10 more changes after that.

The beat the song is built on is one bar, played through bars 81-99 -- 16% of every bar the kit plays. This one moves around more than most: the beat is where to start, not the whole job.

    81
    1e+a2e+a3e+a4e+a
SD |-g-gg-gg-g-gg-gg|
T1 |-----x-------x--|
FT |x-x-----x-x-----|
BD |x-x-----x-x-----|
HF |x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-|

6 fills to learn, played 16 times: bars 35, 36, 38, 39, 40, 65 and 10 more.

It cuts the song into 36 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 -- R -- 1 exercise, about 18 minutes.
2. The grooves the song is built on -- O, B -- 3 exercises, about 31 minutes.
3. Through Part B -- 2 exercises, about 28 minutes.
4. Through Part B and the Chorus -- 5 exercises, about 31 minutes. Open above.
5. Through the Chorus and Part I -- 4 exercises, about 28 minutes.
6. Bars 37-49 -- 6 exercises, about 26 minutes.
7. Through Part D and the Chorus 2 -- 5 exercises, about 33 minutes.
8. Through the Chorus 2 and the Outro -- 7 exercises, about 28 minutes.
9. and 3 more sittings after that.