← SONGS

Old School Hollywood · System of a Down

EXERCISE 9 OF 31
Groove H
55 / 118 BARS COVERED
0 / 31 PASSED · 3 BARS LIT · IN THE PART I
CHORUS
PART I
PART J
PART I
PART J
CHORUS 2
PART L
PART N
OUTRO
OUTRO 2
7 groovesAJOIL+2Fill into the next barFill that ends a sectionInto the next partStop / hitRest
GROOVE · 9
FILL · 1
LAND · 1
RUN · 3
JOIN · 8
LINK · 3
SECTION · 5
WHOLE SONG · 1
ABOUT THIS DRUM PART

How to play Old School Hollywood on drums

118 bars at 163 BPM -- fast, and 2:54 of it without a break -- on crash, ride, hi-hat, snare, high tom, mid tom, floor tom, kick and hi-hat foot.

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

TEMPO
163 BPM
TIME
4/4
BARS
118
LENGTH
2:54
DIFFICULTY
69/100

hi-hat through bars 1-12, snare through bars 13-20, hi-hat through bars 21-28, ride through bars 29-37, snare through bars 38-45 and hi-hat through bars 46-53, and 6 more changes after that.

The beat

The beat the song is built on is one bar, played through bars 1-10 and 74-81 -- 15.3% of every bar the kit plays. This one moves around more than most: the beat is where to start, not the whole job.

    1
    1e+a2e+a3e+a4e+a
HH |x-g-x-g-x-g-x-g-|
BD |x---------------|
Old School Hollywood -- the groove · x hit · o open hi-hat · g ghost note · r cross-stick · X accent

The fills

1 fill to learn, played 3 times: bars 12, 28 and 53.

What the course does

It cuts the song into 29 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, I -- 3 exercises, about 30 minutes.
  2. The grooves the song is built on -- E -- 3 exercises, about 23 minutes.
  3. Through the Chorus -- 2 exercises, about 22 minutes.
  4. Through the Chorus and Part I -- 2 exercises, about 21 minutes. Open above.
  5. Through Part J and Part I -- 4 exercises, about 30 minutes.
  6. Bars 54-77 -- 4 exercises, about 19 minutes.
  7. Through the Chorus 2 and Part L -- 3 exercises, about 26 minutes.
  8. Bars 88-103 -- 4 exercises, about 30 minutes.
  9. and 2 more sittings after that.
START THE COURSE ↑

Questions

What BPM is Old School Hollywood?

163 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 Old School Hollywood hard to play on drums?

69 out of 100: demanding, mostly on the independence between the hands and the feet. The beat itself is 24 out of 100; the rest of the number is everything around it.

How long is the drum part?

118 bars, about 2:54 at the written tempo. The course breaks it into 29 exercises over 10 sittings, about 25 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 Old School Hollywood?

1 fill to learn, played 3 times: bars 12, 28 and 53.

READ OFF THE SCORE ITSELF · 118 BARS ANALYSED