← SONGS

Sidewinder · Avenged Sevenfold

EXERCISE 1 OF 88
Groove AY -- Outro 2
0 / 212 BARS COVERED
0 / 88 PASSED · 45 BARS LIT · IN THE OUTRO 2
PART C
PART I
PART X
OUTRO 2
14 groovesAYCIUX+9Fill into the next barFill that ends a sectionInto the next partStop / hitRest
GROOVE · 15
FILL · 19
LAND · 19
RUN · 4
JOIN · 13
LINK · 7
SECTION · 10
WHOLE SONG · 1
ABOUT THIS DRUM PART

How to play Sidewinder on drums

212 bars of 4/4 at 123 BPM, about 6:52 of playing, on crash, ride, hi-hat, snare, high tom, mid tom, floor tom, kick and hi-hat foot.

84 out of 100. Hard, and what makes it hard is the independence between the hands and the feet.

TEMPO
123 BPM
TIME
4/4
BARS
212
LENGTH
6:52
DIFFICULTY
84/100

silence through bars 1-7, hi-hat through bars 8-24, ride through bars 25-28, hi-hat through bars 29-54, ride through bars 55-58 and hi-hat through bars 59-66, and 15 more changes after that.

The beat

The beat the song is built on is one bar, played through bars 153-155, 157-159 and 161-163, and 12 more places -- 23% of every bar the kit plays. This one moves around more than most: the beat is where to start, not the whole job.

    153
    1...........2...........3...........4...........
HH |x-----o-----x-----x-----x-----o-----x-----x-----|
SD |------------x-----------------------x-----------|
BD |x--------x--------x-----------x-----------------|
Sidewinder -- the groove · x hit · o open hi-hat · g ghost note · r cross-stick · X accent

The fills

19 fills to learn, played 27 times: bars 24, 28, 36, 50, 54, 58 and 21 more.

What the course does

It cuts the song into 68 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 -- AY, C -- 2 exercises, about 30 minutes.
  2. The grooves the song is built on -- AX -- 1 exercise, about 18 minutes.
  3. Through Part C -- 2 exercises, about 21 minutes.
  4. Through Part C and Part F -- 3 exercises, about 25 minutes.
  5. Through Part F and Part I -- 5 exercises, about 30 minutes.
  6. Through Part F and Part I -- 2 exercises, about 9 minutes.
  7. Through Part I -- 1 exercise, about 22 minutes.
  8. Through Part I -- 2 exercises, about 27 minutes.
  9. and 15 more sittings after that.
START THE COURSE ↑

Questions

What BPM is Sidewinder?

123 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 Sidewinder hard to play on drums?

84 out of 100. Hard, and what makes it hard is the independence between the hands and the feet. The beat itself is 61 out of 100; the rest of the number is everything around it.

How long is the drum part?

212 bars, about 6:52 at the written tempo. The course breaks it into 68 exercises over 23 sittings, about 25 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 Sidewinder?

19 fills to learn, played 27 times: bars 24, 28, 36, 50, 54, 58 and 21 more.

READ OFF THE SCORE ITSELF · 212 BARS ANALYSED