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Running Free · Iron Maiden

EXERCISE 1 OF 23
Groove A -- Part A
0 / 137 BARS COVERED
0 / 23 PASSED · 63 BARS LIT
PART B
PART A
CHORUS
OUTRO
OUTRO 2
3 groovesDABFill into the next barFill that ends a sectionInto the next partStop / hitRest
GROOVE · 8
FILL · 2
LAND · 2
RUN · 2
JOIN · 3
LINK · 2
SECTION · 3
WHOLE SONG · 1
ABOUT THIS DRUM PART

How to play Running Free on drums

137 bars at 170 BPM -- fast, and 3:13 of it without a break -- on crash, snare, high tom, mid tom, floor tom and kick.

60 out of 100, a step up from a first song, and the work is in the independence between the hands and the feet.

TEMPO
170 BPM
TIME
4/4
BARS
137
LENGTH
3:13
DIFFICULTY
60/100

toms through bars 1-30, snare through bars 31-32, toms through bars 33-46, snare through bars 47-48, toms through bars 49-50 and snare through bars 51-52, and 8 more changes after that.

The beat

The beat the song is built on is one bar, played through bars 1-3, 5-7 and 9-11, and 24 more places -- 46% of every bar the kit plays. Learn that one and most of the song is already under your hands.

    9
    1.....2.....3.....4.....
SD |------X--X--------X-----|
T1 |X--x--X--x--X--x--X--x--|
BD |x-----x-----x-----x-----|
Running Free -- the groove · x hit · o open hi-hat · g ghost note · r cross-stick · X accent

The fills

2 fills to learn, played 3 times: bars 34, 35 and 78.

What the course does

It cuts the song into 20 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 -- 2 exercises, about 29 minutes.
  2. Through Part B and Part A -- 3 exercises, about 25 minutes.
  3. Through Part A -- 2 exercises, about 22 minutes.
  4. Through the Chorus -- 2 exercises, about 22 minutes.
  5. Through the Chorus -- 2 exercises, about 27 minutes.
  6. Through the Chorus and the Outro -- 6 exercises, about 22 minutes.
  7. Through the Outro and the Outro 2 -- 4 exercises, about 32 minutes.
  8. The whole song -- 2 exercises, about 14 minutes.
START THE COURSE ↑

Questions

What BPM is Running Free?

170 BPM, in 4/4, 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 Running Free hard to play on drums?

60 out of 100, a step up from a first song, and the work is in 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?

137 bars, about 3:13 at the written tempo. The course breaks it into 20 exercises over 8 sittings, about 24 minutes each.

What do I need on the kit?

crash, 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 Running Free?

2 fills to learn, played 3 times: bars 34, 35 and 78.

READ OFF THE SCORE ITSELF · 137 BARS ANALYSED