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Symptom of the Universe · Black Sabbath

EXERCISE 11 OF 59
Groove T (a two-bar phrase)
169 / 238 BARS COVERED
0 / 59 PASSED · 4 BARS LIT · IN THE CHORUS
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
GROOVE · 8
FILL · 16
LAND · 16
RUN · 1
JOIN · 7
LINK · 4
SECTION · 6
WHOLE SONG · 1
ABOUT THIS DRUM PART

How to play Symptom of the Universe on drums

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.

82 out of 100. Hard, and what makes it hard is the independence between the hands and the feet.

TEMPO
210 BPM
TIME
4/4
BARS
238
LENGTH
4:32
DIFFICULTY
82/100

silence through bars 1-4, snare through bars 5-13, toms through bars 14-21, snare through bars 22-45, toms through bars 46-53 and snare through bars 54-77, and 8 more changes after that.

The beat

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.

    11
    1e+a2e+a3e+a4e+a
CC |x---x---x---x---|
SD |----x-------x---|
BD |x-------x-x-----|
Symptom of the Universe -- the groove · x hit · o open hi-hat · g ghost note · r cross-stick · X accent

The fills

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

What the course does

It cuts the song into 42 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 -- 4 exercises, about 30 minutes.
  2. The grooves the song is built on -- AT -- 1 exercise, about 19 minutes.
  3. The grooves the song is built on -- V -- 3 exercises, about 22 minutes.
  4. Through the Chorus -- 2 exercises, about 13 minutes.
  5. Through the Chorus -- 3 exercises, about 31 minutes. Open above.
  6. Bars 82-109 -- 3 exercises, about 24 minutes.
  7. Through Part V and the Chorus 2 -- 5 exercises, about 27 minutes.
  8. Through the Chorus 2 and Part V -- 3 exercises, about 18 minutes.
  9. and 8 more sittings after that.
START THE COURSE ↑

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