Tension · Avenged Sevenfold

137 bars, 8:21, at 70 BPM: slow enough that every note is exposed. Crash, ride, hi-hat, snare, high tom, mid tom, floor tom and kick and nothing else.

MetalRockUnder 90 BPM
TEMPO
70 BPM
TIME
4/4
BARS
137
LENGTH
8:21
DIFFICULTY
68/100
THE BEAT

One bar, and 44% of the song

The beat the song is built on is a 2-bar phrase, played through bars 9-15, 17-23 and 29-35, and 5 more places -- 43.8% of every bar the kit plays. Learn that one and most of the song is already under your hands.

LOOP · 70 BPM
TENSION · BARS 9-10
THE BEAT, WRITTEN OUT →
THE FILLS

Where it comes off the beat

7 fills to learn, played 23 times: bars 4, 8, 24, 25, 26, 27 and 17 more.

LOOP · 70 BPM
BAR 4 · LANDS ON BAR 5 · PLAYED 2 TIMES
LOOP · 70 BPM
BAR 44 · LANDS ON BAR 45 · PLAYED 2 TIMES
LOOP · 70 BPM
BARS 46-48 · LANDS ON BAR 49 · PLAYED 3 TIMES

4 more fills are written out on the fills page.

EVERY FILL, WRITTEN OUT →
THE SHAPE

How the song is built

137 bars across 5 sections: 81 keep time, 23 are fills, 20 are stops and 9 are silent. The longest unbroken stretch of time is bars 9-23.

CHORUS
PART H
OUTRO
BREAK
4 groovesDHS5BFill into the next barFill that ends a sectionInto the next partStop / hitRest

Questions

What BPM is Tension?

70 BPM, in 4/4, with the time kept in thirty-second notes. Slow enough to hear every mistake, which is why the room lets you sit at the written tempo rather than under it.

Is Tension hard to play on drums?

68 out of 100: demanding, mostly on the independence between the hands and the feet. The beat itself is 44 out of 100; the rest of the number is everything around it.

How long is the drum part?

137 bars, about 8:21 at the written tempo. The course breaks it into 22 exercises over 7 sittings, about 28 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 Tension?

7 fills to learn, played 23 times: bars 4, 8, 24, 25, 26, 27 and 17 more.

READ OFF THE SCORE ITSELF · 137 BARS ANALYSED
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