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Tentative · System of a Down

Tentative · System of a Down
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EXERCISE 18 OF 30
Groove H -- Part H
74 / 131 BARS COVERED
0 / 30 PASSED · 6 BARS LIT · IN THE PART H, OUTRO
PART D
PART E
CHORUS
PART E
CHORUS 2
PART H
OUTRO
OUTRO 2
9 groovesFIMED+4Fill into the next barFill that ends a sectionInto the next partStop / hitRest
GROOVE · 7
FILL · 2
LAND · 2
RUN · 2
JOIN · 6
LINK · 4
SECTION · 6
WHOLE SONG · 1
ABOUT THIS DRUM PART

How to play Tentative on drums

131 bars at 158 BPM -- fast, and 3:19 of it without a break -- on crash, ride, hi-hat, snare, high tom, mid tom, floor tom and kick.

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

TEMPO
158 BPM
TIME
4/4
BARS
131
LENGTH
3:19
DIFFICULTY
72/100

silence through bars 1-4, hi-hat through bars 5-16, toms through bars 17-24, hi-hat through bars 25-44, toms through bars 45-52 and hi-hat through bars 53-69, and 7 more changes after that.

The beat

The beat the song is built on is a 2-bar phrase, played through bars 25-31, 53-59 and 61-67 -- 17.6% of every bar the kit plays. This one moves around more than most: the beat is where to start, not the whole job.

    25                                               26
    1...........2...........3...........4........... 1...........2...........3...........4...........
CC |x-----------------------------------------------|------------------------------------------------|
HH |o-----------o-----------o-----------o-----------|o-----------o-----------o-----------o-----------|
SD |------------------------x--------------------gg-|------------------------x-----------------------|
BD |x-----------------------------------------------|x-----------x-----------------x-----------x-----|
Tentative -- the groove · x hit · o open hi-hat · g ghost note · r cross-stick · X accent

The fills

2 fills to learn, played 3 times: bars 4, 109 and 110.

What the course does

It cuts the song into 27 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 -- F, D -- 2 exercises, about 30 minutes.
  2. The grooves the song is built on -- C -- 5 exercises, about 30 minutes.
  3. Through Part D and Part E -- 4 exercises, about 27 minutes.
  4. Bars 21-69 -- 6 exercises, about 29 minutes.
  5. Through Part H and the Break -- 3 exercises, about 23 minutes. Open above.
  6. Through the Outro -- 3 exercises, about 25 minutes.
  7. Through the Outro and the Outro 2 -- 5 exercises, about 34 minutes.
  8. The whole song -- 2 exercises, about 14 minutes.
START THE COURSE ↑

Questions

What BPM is Tentative?

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

Is Tentative hard to play on drums?

72 out of 100: demanding, mostly on the independence between the hands and the feet. The beat itself is 55 out of 100; the rest of the number is everything around it.

How long is the drum part?

131 bars, about 3:19 at the written tempo. The course breaks it into 27 exercises over 8 sittings, about 27 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 Tentative?

2 fills to learn, played 3 times: bars 4, 109 and 110.

READ OFF THE SCORE ITSELF · 131 BARS ANALYSED