ABOUT THIS DRUM PART

How to play Pagan Sons on drums

219 bars of 4/4 at 145 BPM, about 6:02 of playing, on crash, ride, hi-hat, snare, high tom, mid tom, floor tom and kick.

64 out of 100, a step up from a first song, and the work is in how fine the subdivision is.

TEMPO: 145 BPM
TIME: 4/4
BARS: 219
LENGTH: 6:02
DIFFICULTY: 64/100

silence through bars 1-7, snare through bars 8-50, hi-hat through bars 51-82, snare through bars 83-92, hi-hat through bars 93-124 and snare through bars 125-138, and 6 more changes after that.

The beat

The beat the song is built on is a 2-bar phrase, played through bars 51-55, 59-65 and 67-72, and 7 more places -- 30.7% of every bar the kit plays. That is the spine of it; everything else is what happens around it.

    51                                               52
    1...........2...........3...........4........... 1...........2...........3...........4...........
CC |x-----------------------------------------------|------------------------------------------------|
HH |------------o-----------o-----------o-----------|o-----------o-----------o-----------------o-----|
SD |x-----------x-----------------x-----x-----------|x-----------x-----------------x-----------x-----|
BD |x-----------x-----x-----------x-----x-----------|x-----------x-----x-----------x-----x--x--x-----|

Pagan Sons -- the groove · x hit · o open hi-hat · g ghost note · r cross-stick · X accent

The fills

9 fills to learn, played 24 times: bars 12, 48, 66, 78, 82, 86 and 18 more.

What the course does

It cuts the song into 42 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.

The grooves the song is built on -- F, N -- 2 exercises, about 28 minutes.
The grooves the song is built on -- D -- 3 exercises, about 19 minutes.
Through Part A and Part D -- 5 exercises, about 28 minutes.
Through Part D -- 5 exercises, about 28 minutes.
Through Part D and the Chorus -- 3 exercises, about 26 minutes. Open above.
Through the Chorus -- 3 exercises, about 23 minutes.
Through the Chorus and Part K -- 5 exercises, about 29 minutes.
Bars 79-151 -- 5 exercises, about 29 minutes.
and 4 more sittings after that.

START THE COURSE ↑

Questions

What BPM is Pagan Sons?

145 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 Pagan Sons hard to play on drums?

64 out of 100, a step up from a first song, and the work is in how fine the subdivision is. The beat itself is 54 out of 100; the rest of the number is everything around it.

How long is the drum part?

219 bars, about 6:02 at the written tempo. The course breaks it into 42 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 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 Pagan Sons?

9 fills to learn, played 24 times: bars 12, 48, 66, 78, 82, 86 and 18 more.

READ OFF THE SCORE ITSELF · 219 BARS ANALYSED