Soldier On! · Megadeth

189 bars at 168 BPM -- fast, and 4:30 of it without a break -- on crash, ride, hi-hat, snare, high tom, mid tom, floor tom and kick.

Metal150 BPM and upShuffle / triplet
TEMPO
168 BPM
TIME
4/4
BARS
189
LENGTH
4:30
DIFFICULTY
82/100
THE BEAT

One bar, and 24% of the song

The beat the song is built on is one bar, played through bars 1-3, 5-7 and 9-11, and 15 more places -- 23.8% of every bar the kit plays. This one moves around more than most: the beat is where to start, not the whole job.

LOOP · 168 BPM
SOLDIER ON! · BAR 2
THE BEAT, WRITTEN OUT →
THE FILLS

Where it comes off the beat

17 fills to learn, played 42 times: bars 8, 16, 24, 26, 30, 32 and 36 more.

LOOP · 168 BPM
BAR 8 · LANDS ON BAR 9
LOOP · 168 BPM
BAR 16 · LANDS ON BAR 17 · PLAYED 2 TIMES
LOOP · 168 BPM
BAR 26 · LANDS ON BAR 27 · PLAYED 6 TIMES
LOOP · 168 BPM
BAR 32 · LANDS ON BAR 33

13 more fills are written out on the fills page.

EVERY FILL, WRITTEN OUT →
THE SHAPE

How the song is built

189 bars across 13 sections: 123 keep time, 42 are fills, 7 are stops and 4 are silent. The longest unbroken stretch of time is bars 1-7.

PART A
CHORUS
PART A
CHORUS 2
CHORUS 3
OUTRO 2
8 groovesGAABAGB+3Fill into the next barFill that ends a sectionInto the next partStop / hitRest

Questions

What BPM is Soldier On!?

168 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 Soldier On! hard to play on drums?

82 out of 100. Hard, and what makes it hard is how much of it falls off the beat. The beat itself is 70 out of 100; the rest of the number is everything around it.

How long is the drum part?

189 bars, about 4:30 at the written tempo. The course breaks it into 47 exercises over 16 sittings, about 27 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 Soldier On!?

17 fills to learn, played 42 times: bars 8, 16, 24, 26, 30, 32 and 36 more.

READ OFF THE SCORE ITSELF · 189 BARS ANALYSED
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