Symptom of the Universe · Black Sabbath

238 bars at 210 BPM -- fast, and 4:32 of it without a break -- on crash, ride, hi-hat, snare, high tom, mid tom, floor tom, kick and hi-hat foot.

MetalRock150 BPM and upAdvanced
TEMPO
210 BPM
TIME
4/4
BARS
238
LENGTH
4:32
DIFFICULTY
82/100
THE BEAT

One bar, and 34% of the song

The beat the song is built on is one bar, played through bars 6-13, 22-45 and 54-77, and 1 more place -- 34.2% of every bar the kit plays. That is the spine of it; everything else is what happens around it.

LOOP · 210 BPM
SYMPTOM OF THE UNIVERSE · BAR 11
THE BEAT, WRITTEN OUT →
THE FILLS

Where it comes off the beat

16 fills to learn, played 53 times: bars 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19 and 47 more.

LOOP · 210 BPM
BARS 14-21 · LANDS ON BAR 22 · PLAYED 8 TIMES
LOOP · 210 BPM
BARS 46-53 · LANDS ON BAR 54 · PLAYED 8 TIMES
LOOP · 210 BPM
BARS 78-83 · LANDS ON BAR 84 · PLAYED 6 TIMES
LOOP · 210 BPM
BARS 102-107 · LANDS ON BAR 108 · PLAYED 6 TIMES

12 more fills are written out on the fills page.

EVERY FILL, WRITTEN OUT →
THE SHAPE

How the song is built

238 bars across 10 sections: 127 keep time, 53 are fills, 46 are stops and 4 are silent. The longest unbroken stretch of time is bars 87-101.

CHORUS
PART V
CHORUS 2
PART V
PART AH
PART AT
OUTRO 2
7 groovesBATVAHAW+2Fill into the next barFill that ends a sectionInto the next partStop / hitRest

Questions

What BPM is Symptom of the Universe?

210 BPM, in 4/4, 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 Symptom of the Universe hard to play on drums?

82 out of 100. Hard, and what makes it hard is the independence between the hands and the feet. The beat itself is 36 out of 100; the rest of the number is everything around it.

How long is the drum part?

238 bars, about 4:32 at the written tempo. The course breaks it into 42 exercises over 16 sittings, about 24 minutes each.

What do I need on the kit?

crash, ride, hi-hat, 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 Symptom of the Universe?

16 fills to learn, played 53 times: bars 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19 and 47 more.

READ OFF THE SCORE ITSELF · 238 BARS ANALYSED
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