Take No Prisoners · Megadeth

131 bars at 160 BPM -- fast, and 3:17 of it without a break -- on crash, ride, hi-hat, snare, high tom, mid tom, floor tom and kick.

MetalRock150 BPM and upAdvanced
TEMPO
160 BPM
TIME
4/4
BARS
131
LENGTH
3:17
DIFFICULTY
80/100
THE BEAT

One bar, and 18% of the song

The beat the song is built on is a 2-bar phrase, played through bars 63-74 and 89-99 -- 18.4% of every bar the kit plays. This one moves around more than most: the beat is where to start, not the whole job.

LOOP · 160 BPM
TAKE NO PRISONERS · BARS 63-64
THE BEAT, WRITTEN OUT →
THE FILLS

Where it comes off the beat

7 fills to learn, played 13 times: bars 30, 38, 88, 100, 103, 104 and 7 more.

LOOP · 160 BPM
BAR 30 · LANDS ON BAR 31 · PLAYED 2 TIMES
LOOP · 160 BPM
BAR 88 · LANDS ON BAR 89 · PLAYED 2 TIMES
LOOP · 160 BPM
BARS 103-104 · LANDS ON BAR 105 · PLAYED 2 TIMES
LOOP · 160 BPM
BAR 112 · LANDS ON BAR 113

3 more fills are written out on the fills page.

EVERY FILL, WRITTEN OUT →
THE SHAPE

How the song is built

131 bars across 14 sections: 100 keep time, 13 are fills and 6 are silent. The longest unbroken stretch of time is bars 63-87.

PART E
PART G
PART G
PART H
CHORUS
PART G
OUTRO
OUTRO 2
10 groovesJGEHQ+5Fill into the next barFill that ends a sectionInto the next partStop / hitRest

Questions

What BPM is Take No Prisoners?

160 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 Take No Prisoners hard to play on drums?

80 out of 100. Hard, and what makes it hard is the independence between the hands and the feet. The beat itself is 79 out of 100; the rest of the number is everything around it.

How long is the drum part?

131 bars, about 3:17 at the written tempo. The course breaks it into 40 exercises over 13 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 Take No Prisoners?

7 fills to learn, played 13 times: bars 30, 38, 88, 100, 103, 104 and 7 more.

READ OFF THE SCORE ITSELF · 131 BARS ANALYSED
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