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Stygian Sceptre · Scythe of Mephisto

Stygian Sceptre · Scythe of Mephisto
EXERCISE 16 OF 72
Fill at bar 174 (a small one)
107 / 177 BARS COVERED
0 / 72 PASSED · 1 BAR LIT · IN THE OUTRO 2
PART A
CHORUS
CHORUS 2
PART H
PART V
PART A
CHORUS 3
OUTRO
OUTRO 2
8 groovesDAHEL+3Fill into the next barFill that ends a sectionInto the next partStop / hitRest
GROOVE · 9
FILL · 18
LAND · 18
RUN · 2
JOIN · 10
LINK · 10
SECTION · 4
WHOLE SONG · 1
ABOUT THIS DRUM PART

How to play Stygian Sceptre on drums

177 bars at 180 BPM -- fast, and 3:56 of it without a break -- on crash, ride, hi-hat, snare, high tom, mid tom, floor tom and kick.

100 out of 100. Hard, and what makes it hard is how many notes a second it asks for.

TEMPO
180 BPM
TIME
4/4
BARS
177
LENGTH
3:56
DIFFICULTY
100/100

ride through bars 1-16, hi-hat through bars 17-22, ride through bars 23-24, hi-hat through bars 25-28, ride through bars 29-32 and hi-hat through bars 33-38, and 23 more changes after that.

The beat

The beat the song is built on is one bar, played through bars 17-22, 25-28 and 33-38, and 5 more places -- 22.6% of every bar the kit plays. This one moves around more than most: the beat is where to start, not the whole job.

    17
    1...........2...........3...........4...........
CC |x-----------------------------------------------|
HH |------o-----o-----o-----o-----o-----o-----o-----|
SD |------x-----------x-----------x-----------x-----|
BD |x-----------x-----------x-----------x-----------|
Stygian Sceptre -- the groove · x hit · o open hi-hat · g ghost note · r cross-stick · X accent

The fills

18 fills to learn, played 34 times: bars 8, 16, 24, 32, 40, 48 and 28 more.

What the course does

It cuts the song into 53 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 -- 1 exercise, about 18 minutes.
  2. The grooves the song is built on -- A -- 4 exercises, about 35 minutes.
  3. The grooves the song is built on -- H -- 3 exercises, about 26 minutes.
  4. Through Part H -- 2 exercises, about 9 minutes.
  5. Through Part A -- 2 exercises, about 26 minutes.
  6. Through Part A and the Chorus -- 3 exercises, about 26 minutes.
  7. Bars 17-177 -- 8 exercises, about 30 minutes. Open above.
  8. Bars 25-36 -- 7 exercises, about 30 minutes.
  9. and 10 more sittings after that.
START THE COURSE ↑

Questions

What BPM is Stygian Sceptre?

180 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 Stygian Sceptre hard to play on drums?

100 out of 100. Hard, and what makes it hard is how many notes a second it asks for. The beat itself is 74 out of 100; the rest of the number is everything around it.

How long is the drum part?

177 bars, about 3:56 at the written tempo. The course breaks it into 53 exercises over 18 sittings, about 25 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 Stygian Sceptre?

18 fills to learn, played 34 times: bars 8, 16, 24, 32, 40, 48 and 28 more.

READ OFF THE SCORE ITSELF · 177 BARS ANALYSED