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Symphony of a Dying Star · Mental Cruelty

EXERCISE 1 OF 55
Groove C -- Chorus
0 / 148 BARS COVERED
0 / 55 PASSED · 35 BARS LIT · IN THE CHORUS, CHORUS 2, OUTRO
CHORUS
PART M
CHORUS 2
PART X
PART AF
OUTRO
BREAK 4
8 groovesCS10AFMX+3Fill into the next barFill that ends a sectionInto the next partStop / hitRest
GROOVE · 8
FILL · 15
LAND · 15
RUN · 2
JOIN · 7
LINK · 4
SECTION · 3
WHOLE SONG · 1
ABOUT THIS DRUM PART

How to play Symphony of a Dying Star on drums

148 bars of 6/4 -- not four -- at 220 BPM, 3:58 of playing on crash, ride, hi-hat, snare, high tom, mid tom, floor tom and kick.

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

TEMPO
220 BPM
TIME
6/4
BARS
148
LENGTH
3:58
DIFFICULTY
76/100

toms through bars 1-2, ride through bars 3-26, hi-hat through bars 27-29, snare through bars 30-38, ride through bars 39-62 and kick and crashes through bars 63-64, and 8 more changes after that.

The beat

The beat the song is built on is one bar, played through bars 3-9, 12-17 and 23-26, and 5 more places -- 36.5% of every bar the kit plays. Learn that one and most of the song is already under your hands.

    3
    1e+a2e+a3e+a4e+a5e+a6e+a
CC |x-----------------------|
RD |--x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-|
SD |-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x|
BD |x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-|
Symphony of a Dying Star -- the groove · x hit · o open hi-hat · g ghost note · r cross-stick · X accent

The fills

15 fills to learn, played 30 times: bars 1, 2, 10, 11, 18, 20 and 24 more.

What the course does

It cuts the song into 39 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 -- C -- 4 exercises, about 33 minutes.
  2. The grooves the song is built on -- N -- 1 exercise, about 17 minutes.
  3. The grooves the song is built on -- AE -- 1 exercise, about 16 minutes.
  4. Through the Chorus -- 3 exercises, about 30 minutes.
  5. Through the Chorus -- 6 exercises, about 19 minutes.
  6. Through the Chorus and Part M -- 5 exercises, about 32 minutes.
  7. Bars 1-39 -- 7 exercises, about 30 minutes.
  8. Through Part M and the Chorus 2 -- 6 exercises, about 28 minutes.
  9. and 6 more sittings after that.
START THE COURSE ↑

Questions

What BPM is Symphony of a Dying Star?

220 BPM, in 6/4, with the time kept in sixteenth notes. At that speed the sixteenth notes are the whole difficulty, so the room will take it down to a quarter of it and climb back.

Is Symphony of a Dying Star hard to play on drums?

76 out of 100: demanding, mostly on the independence between the hands and the feet. The beat itself is 89 out of 100; the rest of the number is everything around it.

How long is the drum part?

148 bars, about 3:58 at the written tempo. The course breaks it into 39 exercises over 14 sittings, about 23 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 Symphony of a Dying Star?

15 fills to learn, played 30 times: bars 1, 2, 10, 11, 18, 20 and 24 more.

READ OFF THE SCORE ITSELF · 148 BARS ANALYSED