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Spasm · Meshuggah

EXERCISE 21 OF 49
15-bar fill at bar 34
78 / 145 BARS COVERED
0 / 49 PASSED · 15 BARS LIT · IN THE CHORUS
PART A
PART K
CHORUS
PART K
CHORUS 2
PART A
OUTRO
OUTRO 2
6 groovesSAAQFK+1Fill into the next barFill that ends a sectionInto the next partStop / hitRest
GROOVE · 9
FILL · 10
LAND · 10
RUN · 1
JOIN · 7
LINK · 6
SECTION · 5
WHOLE SONG · 1
ABOUT THIS DRUM PART

How to play Spasm on drums

145 bars of 4/4 at 140 BPM, about 4:09 of playing, on crash, hi-hat, snare, high tom, mid tom, floor tom, kick and hi-hat foot.

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

TEMPO
140 BPM
TIME
4/4
BARS
145
LENGTH
4:09
DIFFICULTY
64/100

snare through bars 1-24, hi-hat through bars 25-40, toms through bars 41-48, snare through bars 49-58, hi-hat through bars 59-74 and snare through bars 75-145.

The beat

The beat the song is built on is a 2-bar phrase, played through bars 1-2, 8-10 and 75-76, and 5 more places -- 9.7% of every bar the kit plays. This one moves around more than most: the beat is where to start, not the whole job.

    1                2
    1e+a2e+a3e+a4e+a 1e+a2e+a3e+a4e+a
CC |X---X---X---X---|X---X---X---X---|
SD |----x------x----|--x-------x-----|
BD |x-----x-x-----x-|x-----x--x--x---|
Spasm -- the groove · x hit · o open hi-hat · g ghost note · r cross-stick · X accent

The fills

10 fills to learn, played 92 times: bars 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 and 86 more.

What the course does

It cuts the song into 38 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, F -- 2 exercises, about 24 minutes.
  2. The grooves the song is built on -- S -- 3 exercises, about 30 minutes.
  3. Through Part A -- 5 exercises, about 24 minutes.
  4. Through Part A and Part K -- 2 exercises, about 20 minutes.
  5. Through Part A and Part K -- 4 exercises, about 28 minutes.
  6. Through Part K and the Chorus -- 4 exercises, about 18 minutes.
  7. Through the Chorus and Part K -- 3 exercises, about 26 minutes. Open above.
  8. Bars 45-58 -- 6 exercises, about 28 minutes.
  9. and 5 more sittings after that.
START THE COURSE ↑

Questions

What BPM is Spasm?

140 BPM, in 4/4, with the time kept in sixteenth 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 Spasm hard to play on drums?

64 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 33 out of 100; the rest of the number is everything around it.

How long is the drum part?

145 bars, about 4:09 at the written tempo. The course breaks it into 38 exercises over 13 sittings, about 26 minutes each.

What do I need on the kit?

crash, 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 Spasm?

10 fills to learn, played 92 times: bars 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 and 86 more.

READ OFF THE SCORE ITSELF · 145 BARS ANALYSED