ABOUT THIS DRUM PART

How to play Plaguebearer on drums

144 bars of 6/4 -- not four -- at 165 BPM, 5:05 of playing on crash, ride, hi-hat, snare, high tom, mid tom, floor tom and kick.

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

TEMPO: 165 BPM
TIME: 6/4
BARS: 144
LENGTH: 5:05
DIFFICULTY: 70/100

ride through bar 1, silence through bars 2-5, hi-hat through bars 6-8, toms through bars 9-16, snare through bars 17-41 and ride through bars 42-45, and 6 more changes after that.

The beat

The beat the song is built on is one bar, played through bars 34-36, 38 and 40, and 4 more places -- 9.2% of every bar the kit plays. This one moves around more than most: the beat is where to start, not the whole job.

    34
    1...............2...............3...............4...............5...............6...............
CC |x---------------x---------------x---------------x---------------x---------------x---------------|
SD |------------------------------------------------x-----------------------------------------------|
BD |x--x-x--x--x-x--x--x-x--x--x-x--x--x-x--x--x-x--x--x-x--x--x-x--x--x-x--x--x-x--x--x-x--x--x-x--|

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

The fills

16 fills to learn, played 45 times: bars 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 and 39 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.

The grooves the song is built on -- AC -- 5 exercises, about 32 minutes.
The grooves the song is built on -- O, V -- 2 exercises, about 26 minutes.
Through Part S2 -- 3 exercises, about 23 minutes.
Through Part S2 and Part O -- 2 exercises, about 17 minutes.
Through Part O -- 2 exercises, about 29 minutes.
Through Part O and Part V -- 4 exercises, about 17 minutes.
Through Part V -- 3 exercises, about 21 minutes. Open above.
Bars 32-78 -- 5 exercises, about 30 minutes.
and 8 more sittings after that.

START THE COURSE ↑

Questions

What BPM is Plaguebearer?

165 BPM, in 6/4, with the time kept in thirty-second notes. At that speed the thirty-second notes are the whole difficulty, so the room will take it down to a quarter of it and climb back.

Is Plaguebearer hard to play on drums?

70 out of 100: demanding, mostly on how much of it falls off the beat. The beat itself is 64 out of 100; the rest of the number is everything around it.

How long is the drum part?

144 bars, about 5:05 at the written tempo. The course breaks it into 47 exercises over 16 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 Plaguebearer?

16 fills to learn, played 45 times: bars 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 and 39 more.

READ OFF THE SCORE ITSELF · 144 BARS ANALYSED