Sickman · Alice in Chains

128 bars of 3/4 -- not four -- at 109 BPM, 3:56 of playing on crash, ride, hi-hat, snare, high tom, mid tom, floor tom, kick and hi-hat foot.

Alternative / IndieRock90 to 119 BPMShuffle / triplet
TEMPO
109 BPM
TIME
3/4
BARS
128
LENGTH
3:56
DIFFICULTY
83/100
THE BEAT

One bar, and 34% of the song

The beat the song is built on is one bar, played through bars 19-21, 24-25 and 27, and 18 more places -- 33.6% of every bar the kit plays. That is the spine of it; everything else is what happens around it.

LOOP · 109 BPM
SICKMAN · BAR 20
THE BEAT, WRITTEN OUT →
THE FILLS

Where it comes off the beat

10 fills to learn, played 18 times: bars 18, 26, 30, 32, 48, 56 and 12 more.

LOOP · 109 BPM
BAR 18 · LANDS ON BAR 19
LOOP · 109 BPM
BAR 26 · LANDS ON BAR 27 · PLAYED 3 TIMES
LOOP · 109 BPM
BAR 30 · LANDS ON BAR 31 · PLAYED 5 TIMES
LOOP · 109 BPM
BAR 32 · LANDS ON BAR 33 · PLAYED 2 TIMES

6 more fills are written out on the fills page.

EVERY FILL, WRITTEN OUT →
THE SHAPE

How the song is built

128 bars across 10 sections: 95 keep time, 18 are fills, 1 is a stop and 3 are silent. The longest unbroken stretch of time is bars 67-80.

PART C
CHORUS
PART C
CHORUS 2
CHORUS 3
PART C
OUTRO
5 groovesGCACAS6Fill into the next barFill that ends a sectionInto the next partStop / hitRest

Questions

What BPM is Sickman?

109 BPM, in 3/4, 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 Sickman hard to play on drums?

83 out of 100. Hard, and what makes it hard is the independence between the hands and the feet. The beat itself is 49 out of 100; the rest of the number is everything around it.

How long is the drum part?

128 bars, about 3:56 at the written tempo. The course breaks it into 33 exercises over 13 sittings, about 24 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 Sickman?

10 fills to learn, played 18 times: bars 18, 26, 30, 32, 48, 56 and 12 more.

READ OFF THE SCORE ITSELF · 128 BARS ANALYSED
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