ABOUT THIS DRUM PART

How to play Rotting In Vain on drums

90 bars of 4/4 at a walking 100 BPM, 3:37 of playing, on crash, ride, hi-hat, snare, high tom, mid tom, floor tom and kick.

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

TEMPO: 100 BPM
TIME: 4/4
BARS: 90
LENGTH: 3:37
DIFFICULTY: 74/100

hi-hat through bars 1-11, snare through bars 12-19, hi-hat through bars 20-27, ride through bars 28-35, snare through bars 36-39 and hi-hat through bars 40-47, and 5 more changes after that.

The beat

The beat the song is built on is a 2-bar phrase, played through bars 28-30, 32-34 and 48-50, and 5 more places -- 26.7% of every bar the kit plays. That is the spine of it; everything else is what happens around it.

    28                               29
    1.......2.......3.......4....... 1.......2.......3.......4.......
CC |x---x---------------------------|--------------------------------|
RD |--------x---x---x-x-x---x---x---|x---x---x---x---x---x---x---x---|
SD |--------x---------------x-------|--------x---------------x-------|
BD |x---x-------x-------x-----------|x---x-----------x---x-----x-x---|

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

The fills

12 fills to learn, played 23 times: bars 15, 16, 17, 19, 27, 31 and 17 more.

What the course does

It cuts the song into 35 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 -- N -- 3 exercises, about 22 minutes.
The grooves the song is built on -- D -- 3 exercises, about 22 minutes.
The grooves the song is built on -- B -- 1 exercise, about 16 minutes.
Through Part B and Part D -- 5 exercises, about 35 minutes.
Through Part D and Part J -- 3 exercises, about 26 minutes.
Bars 20-28 -- 4 exercises, about 32 minutes.
Bars 22-47 -- 6 exercises, about 28 minutes.
Through the Chorus 2 and Part D -- 7 exercises, about 32 minutes.
and 3 more sittings after that.

START THE COURSE ↑

Questions

What BPM is Rotting In Vain?

100 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 Rotting In Vain hard to play on drums?

74 out of 100: demanding, mostly on the independence between the hands and the feet. The beat itself is 53 out of 100; the rest of the number is everything around it.

How long is the drum part?

90 bars, about 3:37 at the written tempo. The course breaks it into 35 exercises over 11 sittings, about 26 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 Rotting In Vain?

12 fills to learn, played 23 times: bars 15, 16, 17, 19, 27, 31 and 17 more.

READ OFF THE SCORE ITSELF · 90 BARS ANALYSED