← SONGS

Quintessence · Darkthrone

EXERCISE 24 OF 35
Groove W (a two-bar phrase)
105 / 128 BARS COVERED
0 / 35 PASSED · 6 BARS LIT · IN THE CHORUS 3, PART D
INTRO
PART D
PART D
PART I
CHORUS 3
PART D
OUTRO
5 groovesADIAAS11Fill into the next barFill that ends a sectionInto the next partStop / hitRest
GROOVE · 8
FILL · 5
LAND · 5
RUN · 1
JOIN · 6
LINK · 5
SECTION · 4
WHOLE SONG · 1
ABOUT THIS DRUM PART

How to play Quintessence on drums

128 bars, 7:58, at 67 BPM: slow enough that every note is exposed. Crash, ride, hi-hat, snare, high tom, mid tom, floor tom and kick and nothing else.

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

TEMPO
67 BPM
TIME
4/4
BARS
128
LENGTH
7:58
DIFFICULTY
56/100

hi-hat through bars 1-16, ride through bars 17-32, hi-hat through bars 33-44, ride through bars 45-56, hi-hat through bars 57-60 and kick and crashes through bars 61-62, and 6 more changes after that.

The beat

The beat the song is built on is one bar, played through bars 1-4, 6 and 8-15, and 11 more places -- 32.5% of every bar the kit plays. That is the spine of it; everything else is what happens around it.

    2
    1...........2...........3...........4...........
HH |x-----x-----x-----x-----x-----x-----x-----x-----|
SD |------------x-----------------------x-----------|
BD |x-----------------------x-----------------------|
Quintessence -- the groove · x hit · o open hi-hat · g ghost note · r cross-stick · X accent

The fills

5 fills to learn, played 18 times: bars 16, 32, 44, 64, 65, 66 and 12 more.

What the course does

It cuts the song into 29 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 -- A, D -- 5 exercises, about 33 minutes.
  2. The grooves the song is built on -- F -- 3 exercises, about 30 minutes.
  3. Bars 32-60 -- 5 exercises, about 20 minutes.
  4. Through Part I -- 1 exercise, about 15 minutes.
  5. Through the Chorus 2 and Part I -- 4 exercises, about 28 minutes.
  6. Through Part I and the Chorus 3 -- 5 exercises, about 20 minutes.
  7. Through the Chorus 3 and Part D -- 3 exercises, about 23 minutes. Open above.
  8. Through the Chorus 4 and the Outro -- 5 exercises, about 30 minutes.
  9. and 2 more sittings after that.
START THE COURSE ↑

Questions

What BPM is Quintessence?

67 BPM, in 4/4, with the time kept in thirty-second notes. Slow enough to hear every mistake, which is why the room lets you sit at the written tempo rather than under it.

Is Quintessence hard to play on drums?

56 out of 100, a step up from a first song, and the work is in how fine the subdivision is. The beat itself is 30 out of 100; the rest of the number is everything around it.

How long is the drum part?

128 bars, about 7:58 at the written tempo. The course breaks it into 29 exercises over 10 sittings, about 24 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 Quintessence?

5 fills to learn, played 18 times: bars 16, 32, 44, 64, 65, 66 and 12 more.

READ OFF THE SCORE ITSELF · 128 BARS ANALYSED