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Over The Hills And Far Away · Nightwish

EXERCISE 1 OF 60
Groove K -- Chorus
0 / 172 BARS COVERED
0 / 60 PASSED · 34 BARS LIT · IN THE CHORUS, CHORUS 2, OUTRO
PART A
CHORUS
CHORUS 2
PART A
OUTRO
OUTRO 2
10 groovesKAAAGI+5Fill into the next barFill that ends a sectionInto the next partStop / hitRest
GROOVE · 10
FILL · 12
LAND · 12
RUN · 2
JOIN · 11
LINK · 7
SECTION · 5
WHOLE SONG · 1
ABOUT THIS DRUM PART

How to play Over The Hills And Far Away on drums

172 bars of 4/4 at 136 BPM, about 5:03 of playing, on crash, ride, hi-hat, snare, high tom, mid tom, floor tom and kick.

77 out of 100: demanding, mostly on how much of it falls off the beat.

TEMPO
136 BPM
TIME
4/4
BARS
172
LENGTH
5:03
DIFFICULTY
77/100

toms through bars 1-16, kick and crashes through bars 17-24, hi-hat through bars 25-40, ride through bars 41-48, toms through bars 49-50 and hi-hat through bars 51-66, and 8 more changes after that.

The beat

The beat the song is built on is one bar, played through bars 41-47, 67-73 and 125-131, and 2 more places -- 20.4% of every bar the kit plays. This one moves around more than most: the beat is where to start, not the whole job.

    42
    1.....2.....3.....4.....
RD |x---x---x---x---x---x---|
SD |------x-----------x-----|
BD |x-----------x---x---x---|
Over The Hills And Far Away -- the groove · x hit · o open hi-hat · g ghost note · r cross-stick · X accent

The fills

12 fills to learn, played 20 times: bars 16, 24, 32, 40, 50, 58 and 14 more.

What the course does

It cuts the song into 47 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 -- K -- 1 exercise, about 16 minutes.
  2. The grooves the song is built on -- AA -- 1 exercise, about 18 minutes.
  3. The grooves the song is built on -- A -- 4 exercises, about 27 minutes.
  4. Bars 18-26 -- 4 exercises, about 27 minutes.
  5. Bars 21-33 -- 6 exercises, about 36 minutes.
  6. Bars 29-41 -- 5 exercises, about 28 minutes.
  7. Through Part I and the Chorus -- 3 exercises, about 26 minutes.
  8. Bars 41-76 -- 7 exercises, about 30 minutes.
  9. and 7 more sittings after that.
START THE COURSE ↑

Questions

What BPM is Over The Hills And Far Away?

136 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 Over The Hills And Far Away hard to play on drums?

77 out of 100: demanding, mostly on how much of it falls off the beat. The beat itself is 57 out of 100; the rest of the number is everything around it.

How long is the drum part?

172 bars, about 5:03 at the written tempo. The course breaks it into 47 exercises over 15 sittings, about 25 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 Over The Hills And Far Away?

12 fills to learn, played 20 times: bars 16, 24, 32, 40, 50, 58 and 14 more.

READ OFF THE SCORE ITSELF · 172 BARS ANALYSED