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St. James · Avenged Sevenfold

EXERCISE 1 OF 57
Groove D -- Chorus
0 / 100 BARS COVERED
0 / 57 PASSED · 21 BARS LIT
PART A
CHORUS
PART C
PART H
CHORUS 2
PART P
CHORUS 3
PART P
OUTRO
OUTRO 2
7 groovesDJPAH+2Fill into the next barFill that ends a sectionInto the next partStop / hitRest
GROOVE · 7
FILL · 14
LAND · 14
RUN · 3
JOIN · 8
LINK · 4
SECTION · 6
WHOLE SONG · 1
ABOUT THIS DRUM PART

How to play St. James on drums

100 bars of 4/4 at a walking 90 BPM, 4:27 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
90 BPM
TIME
4/4
BARS
100
LENGTH
4:27
DIFFICULTY
84/100

hi-hat through bars 1-24, ride through bars 25-26, snare through bars 27-32, hi-hat through bars 33-44, ride through bars 45-46 and snare through bars 47-60, and 7 more changes after that.

The beat

The beat the song is built on is one bar, played through bars 10-11, 13-15 and 19, and 8 more places -- 21.6% of every bar the kit plays. This one moves around more than most: the beat is where to start, not the whole job.

    11
    1.......2.......3.......4.......
HH |o---o---o---o---o---o---o---o---|
SD |----x-------x-------x-------x---|
BD |x-xxx-x---x---x---x---x---x---xx|
St. James -- the groove · x hit · o open hi-hat · g ghost note · r cross-stick · X accent

The fills

14 fills to learn, played 24 times: bars 8, 12, 16, 20, 24, 30 and 18 more.

What the course does

It cuts the song into 42 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 -- D -- 3 exercises, about 26 minutes.
  2. The grooves the song is built on -- C -- 1 exercise, about 18 minutes.
  3. The grooves the song is built on -- J -- 3 exercises, about 25 minutes.
  4. Bars 1-91 -- 6 exercises, about 35 minutes.
  5. Through Part A and the Chorus -- 7 exercises, about 30 minutes.
  6. Bars 20-25 -- 3 exercises, about 27 minutes.
  7. Bars 23-33 -- 5 exercises, about 21 minutes.
  8. Through Part H and the Chorus 2 -- 4 exercises, about 33 minutes.
  9. and 5 more sittings after that.
START THE COURSE ↑

Questions

What BPM is St. James?

90 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 St. James 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 73 out of 100; the rest of the number is everything around it.

How long is the drum part?

100 bars, about 4:27 at the written tempo. The course breaks it into 42 exercises over 13 sittings, about 26 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 St. James?

14 fills to learn, played 24 times: bars 8, 12, 16, 20, 24, 30 and 18 more.

READ OFF THE SCORE ITSELF · 100 BARS ANALYSED