ABOUT THIS DRUM PART

How to play Portal on drums

103 bars of 4/4 at a walking 92 BPM, 4:29 of playing, on crash, ride, hi-hat, snare, mid tom, floor tom and kick.

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

TEMPO: 92 BPM
TIME: 4/4
BARS: 103
LENGTH: 4:29
DIFFICULTY: 68/100

silence through bars 1-4, hi-hat through bars 5-6, snare through bars 7-9, toms through bars 10-12, hi-hat through bars 13-24 and snare through bars 25-40, and 12 more changes after that.

The beat

The beat the song is built on is a 2-bar phrase, played through bars 29-32, 37-40 and 45-48, and 2 more places -- 21.3% of every bar the kit plays. This one moves around more than most: the beat is where to start, not the whole job.

    29                                                               30
    1...............2...............3...............4............... 1...............2...............3...............4...............
CC |x---------------x---------------x---------------x---------------|x---------------x---------------x---------------x---------------|
SD |--------------------------------x-----------x-------------------|----------------x-----------x-----------------------------------|
BD |x-----------x-----------x-----------------------x-----------x---|--------x-----------------------x-----------x-----------x-------|

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

The fills

4 fills to learn, played 9 times: bars 12, 17, 18, 41, 42, 43 and 3 more.

What the course does

It cuts the song into 36 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 -- Q, P -- 2 exercises, about 26 minutes.
The grooves the song is built on -- E -- 2 exercises, about 27 minutes.
Through Part S2 and Part E -- 2 exercises, about 9 minutes.
Through Part E and Part H -- 3 exercises, about 29 minutes.
Bars 11-26 -- 3 exercises, about 29 minutes.
Bars 13-32 -- 7 exercises, about 33 minutes. Open above.
Through the Chorus and Part O -- 4 exercises, about 28 minutes.
Through Part O and the Break -- 3 exercises, about 24 minutes.
and 5 more sittings after that.

START THE COURSE ↑

Questions

What BPM is Portal?

92 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 Portal hard to play on drums?

68 out of 100: demanding, mostly on the independence between the hands and the feet. The beat itself is 46 out of 100; the rest of the number is everything around it.

How long is the drum part?

103 bars, about 4:29 at the written tempo. The course breaks it into 36 exercises over 13 sittings, about 25 minutes each.

What do I need on the kit?

crash, ride, hi-hat, snare, 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 Portal?

4 fills to learn, played 9 times: bars 12, 17, 18, 41, 42, 43 and 3 more.

READ OFF THE SCORE ITSELF · 103 BARS ANALYSED