Pictures · System of a Down

82 bars at 160 BPM -- fast, and 2:03 of it without a break -- on crash, hi-hat, snare, high tom, mid tom, floor tom and kick.

MetalRock150 BPM and up
TEMPO
160 BPM
TIME
4/4
BARS
82
LENGTH
2:03
DIFFICULTY
48/100
THE BEAT

One bar, and 22% of the song

The beat the song is built on is one bar, played through bars 9-16, 18 and 20, and 7 more places -- 21.8% of every bar the kit plays. This one moves around more than most: the beat is where to start, not the whole job.

LOOP · 160 BPM
PICTURES · BAR 9
THE BEAT, WRITTEN OUT →
THE FILLS

Where it comes off the beat

2 fills to learn, played 10 times: bars 24, 25, 26, 42, 43, 44 and 4 more.

LOOP · 160 BPM
BARS 24-26 · LANDS ON BAR 27 · PLAYED 9 TIMES
LOOP · 160 BPM
BAR 73 · LANDS ON BAR 74
EVERY FILL, WRITTEN OUT →
THE SHAPE

How the song is built

82 bars across 9 sections: 39 keep time, 10 are fills, 20 are stops and 4 are silent. The longest unbroken stretch of time is bars 10-20.

PART C
PART D
CHORUS
PART D
CHORUS 2
OUTRO
5 groovesHDCS1S2Fill into the next barFill that ends a sectionInto the next partStop / hitRest

Questions

What BPM is Pictures?

160 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 Pictures hard to play on drums?

48 out of 100, a step up from a first song, and the work is in the independence between the hands and the feet. The beat itself is 65 out of 100; the rest of the number is everything around it.

How long is the drum part?

82 bars, about 2:03 at the written tempo. The course breaks it into 16 exercises over 5 sittings, about 23 minutes each.

What do I need on the kit?

crash, 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 Pictures?

2 fills to learn, played 10 times: bars 24, 25, 26, 42, 43, 44 and 4 more.

READ OFF THE SCORE ITSELF · 82 BARS ANALYSED
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