ABOUT THIS DRUM PART

How to play Strange Illusion on drums

100 bars, 6:21, at 63 BPM: slow enough that every note is exposed. Crash, ride, hi-hat, snare, mid tom, floor tom and kick and nothing else.

68 out of 100: demanding, mostly on the independence between the hands and the feet.

TEMPO: 63 BPM
TIME: 4/4
BARS: 100
LENGTH: 6:21
DIFFICULTY: 68/100

ride through bars 1-2, hi-hat through bars 3-6, ride through bars 7-8, hi-hat through bars 9-16, ride through bars 17-18 and hi-hat through bars 19-26, and 10 more changes after that.

The beat

The beat the song is built on is a 2-bar phrase, played through bars 9-15, 29-31 and 33-35, and 4 more places -- 25% of every bar the kit plays. That is the spine of it; everything else is what happens around it.

    9                                10
    1.......2.......3.......4....... 1.......2.......3.......4.......
CC |x-----------x-----------x-------|x-----------x-------------x-----|
HH |----o---o-------o---o-------o---|----o---o-------o---o-----------|
SD |--------x---------------x-------|--------x---------------x-------|
BD |x-----x---x-x-------x-x-------x-|x-----x---x-x---------x---x-----|

Strange Illusion -- the groove · x hit · o open hi-hat · g ghost note · r cross-stick · X accent

The fills

12 fills to learn, played 17 times: bars 8, 16, 28, 32, 36, 48 and 11 more.

What the course does

It cuts the song into 41 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.

The grooves the song is built on -- G, R -- 2 exercises, about 29 minutes.
The grooves the song is built on -- J -- 3 exercises, about 21 minutes.
Through Part C and the Chorus -- 6 exercises, about 35 minutes.
Through the Chorus and Part M -- 3 exercises, about 21 minutes.
Through the Chorus and Part M -- 4 exercises, about 28 minutes.
Bars 23-45 -- 6 exercises, about 27 minutes. Open above.
Bars 44-62 -- 3 exercises, about 26 minutes.
Through the Chorus 3 and Part R -- 5 exercises, about 19 minutes.
and 5 more sittings after that.

START THE COURSE ↑

Questions

What BPM is Strange Illusion?

63 BPM, in 4/4, with the time kept in thirty-second notes. Slow enough to hear every mistake, which is why the room lets you sit at the written tempo rather than under it.

Is Strange Illusion hard to play on drums?

68 out of 100: demanding, mostly on the independence between the hands and the feet. The beat itself is 54 out of 100; the rest of the number is everything around it.

How long is the drum part?

100 bars, about 6:21 at the written tempo. The course breaks it into 41 exercises over 13 sittings, about 25 minutes each.

What do I need on the kit?

crash, ride, hi-hat, snare, 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 Strange Illusion?

12 fills to learn, played 17 times: bars 8, 16, 28, 32, 36, 48 and 11 more.

READ OFF THE SCORE ITSELF · 100 BARS ANALYSED