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Prison Song · System of a Down

EXERCISE 1 OF 34
Groove E -- Chorus
0 / 154 BARS COVERED
0 / 34 PASSED · 42 BARS LIT
PART S1
CHORUS
CHORUS 2
VERSE
CHORUS 3
VERSE 2
CHORUS 4
CHORUS 5
PART M
PART P
VERSE 3
CHORUS 6
OUTRO 2
8 groovesEHMS1F+3Fill into the next barFill that ends a sectionInto the next partStop / hitRest
GROOVE · 12
FILL · 1
LAND · 1
RUN · 2
JOIN · 8
LINK · 4
SECTION · 5
WHOLE SONG · 1
ABOUT THIS DRUM PART

How to play Prison Song on drums

154 bars at 189 BPM -- fast, and 3:16 of it without a break -- on crash, ride, hi-hat, snare, high tom, mid tom, floor tom, kick and hi-hat foot.

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

TEMPO
189 BPM
TIME
4/4
BARS
154
LENGTH
3:16
DIFFICULTY
67/100

kick and crashes through bar 1, silence through bars 2-3, hi-hat through bars 4-7, silence through bars 8-10, hi-hat through bars 11-14 and silence through bars 15-17, and 10 more changes after that.

The beat

The beat the song is built on is one bar, played through bars 23-30, 35-38 and 55-62, and 4 more places -- 29.8% of every bar the kit plays. That is the spine of it; everything else is what happens around it.

    35
    1e+a2e+a3e+a4e+a
CC |----x---x---x-x-|
SD |----x-------x---|
BD |--x-----x-x---x-|
Prison Song -- the groove · x hit · o open hi-hat · g ghost note · r cross-stick · X accent

The fills

1 fill to learn, played 1 time: bar 154.

What the course does

It cuts the song into 32 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 -- E -- 2 exercises, about 17 minutes. Open above.
  2. The grooves the song is built on -- H, M -- 2 exercises, about 30 minutes.
  3. Through Part S1 and the Break -- 3 exercises, about 24 minutes.
  4. Through the Chorus and Part F -- 2 exercises, about 20 minutes.
  5. Bars 31-42 -- 5 exercises, about 34 minutes.
  6. Through the Verse -- 2 exercises, about 28 minutes.
  7. Through the Verse and the Chorus 3 -- 3 exercises, about 14 minutes.
  8. Through the Verse 2 -- 1 exercise, about 20 minutes.
  9. and 4 more sittings after that.
START THE COURSE ↑

Questions

What BPM is Prison Song?

189 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 Prison Song hard to play on drums?

67 out of 100: demanding, mostly on the independence between the hands and the feet. The beat itself is 34 out of 100; the rest of the number is everything around it.

How long is the drum part?

154 bars, about 3:16 at the written tempo. The course breaks it into 32 exercises over 12 sittings, about 23 minutes each.

What do I need on the kit?

crash, ride, hi-hat, snare, high tom, mid tom, floor tom, kick and hi-hat foot. That is most of a full kit; the part moves around it rather than sitting in one place.

How many fills are in Prison Song?

1 fill to learn, played 1 time: bar 154.

READ OFF THE SCORE ITSELF · 154 BARS ANALYSED