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Swarm · Meshuggah

EXERCISE 18 OF 56
Groove J
85 / 171 BARS COVERED
0 / 56 PASSED · 5 BARS LIT · IN THE PART B, CHORUS 3
PART D
PART B
CHORUS 3
PART D
PART AA
PART AM
OUTRO 2
7 groovesCBDAAAQ+2Fill into the next barFill that ends a sectionInto the next partStop / hitRest
GROOVE · 13
FILL · 10
LAND · 10
JOIN · 8
LINK · 8
SECTION · 6
WHOLE SONG · 1
ABOUT THIS DRUM PART

How to play Swarm on drums

171 bars of 4/4 at 135 BPM, about 5:04 of playing, on crash, snare, high tom, mid tom, floor tom, kick and hi-hat foot.

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

TEMPO
135 BPM
TIME
4/4
BARS
171
LENGTH
5:04
DIFFICULTY
66/100

silence through bars 1-6, toms through bars 7-70, snare through bars 71-72, toms through bars 73-104, snare through bars 105-106 and toms through bars 107-108, and 2 more changes after that.

The beat

The beat the song is built on is one bar, played through bars 7, 10 and 12, and 21 more places -- 15.8% of every bar the kit plays. This one moves around more than most: the beat is where to start, not the whole job.

    24
    1e+a2e+a3e+a4e+a
SD |--------x-------|
FT |xxxxxxxx-xxxxxxx|
BD |x--x--x--x--x--x|
Swarm -- the groove · x hit · o open hi-hat · g ghost note · r cross-stick · X accent

The fills

10 fills to learn, played 59 times: bars 22, 30, 42, 43, 44, 45 and 53 more.

What the course does

It cuts the song into 45 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 -- B, C -- 2 exercises, about 29 minutes.
  2. The grooves the song is built on -- D -- 4 exercises, about 30 minutes.
  3. Through Part B and the Chorus 2 -- 4 exercises, about 28 minutes.
  4. Through the Chorus 2 and Part D -- 4 exercises, about 29 minutes.
  5. Through Part D and Part B -- 2 exercises, about 22 minutes.
  6. Through Part B -- 1 exercise, about 17 minutes.
  7. Through Part D and Part B -- 4 exercises, about 33 minutes. Open above.
  8. Through Part B and the Chorus 3 -- 5 exercises, about 23 minutes.
  9. and 11 more sittings after that.
START THE COURSE ↑

Questions

What BPM is Swarm?

135 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 Swarm hard to play on drums?

66 out of 100: demanding, mostly on the independence between the hands and the feet. The beat itself is 53 out of 100; the rest of the number is everything around it.

How long is the drum part?

171 bars, about 5:04 at the written tempo. The course breaks it into 45 exercises over 19 sittings, about 23 minutes each.

What do I need on the kit?

crash, 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 Swarm?

10 fills to learn, played 59 times: bars 22, 30, 42, 43, 44, 45 and 53 more.

READ OFF THE SCORE ITSELF · 171 BARS ANALYSED