Staring At The Sun (Full Band) · Threshold

151 bars at 177 BPM -- fast, and 4:16 of it without a break -- on crash, ride, hi-hat, snare, high tom, mid tom, floor tom, kick and hi-hat foot.

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

TEMPO

177 BPM

TIME

4/4

BARS

151

LENGTH

4:16

DIFFICULTY

47/100

toms through bar 1, hi-hat through bars 2-56, ride through bars 57-71, silence through bars 72-75, hi-hat through bars 76-98 and toms through bars 99-101, and 4 more changes after that.

The beat the song is built on is a 2-bar phrase, played through bars 17-19, 21-23 and 25-27, and 6 more places -- 19% of every bar the kit plays. This one moves around more than most: the beat is where to start, not the whole job.

    17                       18
    1e+a2e+a3e+a4e+a5e+a6e+a 1e+a2e+a3e+a4e+a
CC |x-----------------------|----------------|
HH |----x---x---x---x---x---|x---x---x---x---|
SD |------------x-----------|------------x---|
BD |x-x---x-------------x---|x-----x---x-----|

15 fills to learn, played 38 times: bars 1, 4, 7, 8, 10, 11 and 32 more.

It cuts the song into 49 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 -- L, AB -- 2 exercises, about 26 minutes.
2. The grooves the song is built on -- R -- 6 exercises, about 31 minutes.
3. Through Part B and Part F -- 6 exercises, about 29 minutes. Open above.
4. Bars 7-16 -- 5 exercises, about 25 minutes.
5. Through the Chorus -- 6 exercises, about 30 minutes.
6. Through the Chorus and Part R -- 4 exercises, about 22 minutes.
7. Through the Chorus and Part R -- 6 exercises, about 30 minutes.
8. Bars 57-77 -- 5 exercises, about 27 minutes.
9. and 5 more sittings after that.