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The Best of Times · Dream Theater

EXERCISE 5 OF 85
Groove AN -- Part AN (a two-bar phrase)
60 / 274 BARS COVERED
0 / 85 PASSED · 9 BARS LIT · IN THE PART AN
BREAK
PART V
PART AN
PART AU
OUTRO
BREAK 5
15 groovesBKS2S18VAU+10Fill into the next barFill that ends a sectionInto the next partStop / hitRest
GROOVE · 12
FILL · 22
LAND · 22
RUN · 3
JOIN · 11
LINK · 6
SECTION · 8
WHOLE SONG · 1
ABOUT THIS DRUM PART

How to play The Best of Times on drums

274 bars, 17:21, at 70 BPM: slow enough that every note is exposed. Crash, ride, hi-hat, snare, high tom, mid tom, floor tom, kick and hi-hat foot and nothing else.

61 out of 100, a step up from a first song, and the work is in the independence between the hands and the feet.

TEMPO
70 BPM
TIME
4/4
BARS
274
LENGTH
17:21
DIFFICULTY
61/100

snare through bars 1-10, silence through bars 11-52, hi-hat through bars 53-64, ride through bars 65-72, hi-hat through bars 73-81 and ride through bars 82-85, and 15 more changes after that.

The beat

The beat the song is built on is one bar, played through bars 165-166, 168-169 and 176-178, and 6 more places -- 30.2% of every bar the kit plays. That is the spine of it; everything else is what happens around it.

    165
    1.......2.......3.......4.......
CC |x-------------------------------|
HH |----x---x---x---x---x---x---x---|
SD |--------x---------------x-------|
BD |x---------------x---x-----------|
The Best of Times -- the groove · x hit · o open hi-hat · g ghost note · r cross-stick · X accent

The fills

22 fills to learn, played 61 times: bars 54, 56, 58, 60, 62, 64 and 55 more.

What the course does

It cuts the song into 62 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 -- BK -- 4 exercises, about 23 minutes.
  2. The grooves the song is built on -- AN, C -- 2 exercises, about 30 minutes. Open above.
  3. Through Part C -- 9 exercises, about 32 minutes.
  4. Through Part C and Part K -- 4 exercises, about 28 minutes.
  5. Bars 61-73 -- 5 exercises, about 30 minutes.
  6. Through Part K and Part P -- 3 exercises, about 24 minutes.
  7. Through Part P and Part V -- 4 exercises, about 30 minutes.
  8. Bars 84-103 -- 2 exercises, about 21 minutes.
  9. and 11 more sittings after that.
START THE COURSE ↑

Questions

What BPM is The Best of Times?

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 The Best of Times hard to play on drums?

61 out of 100, a step up from a first song, and the work is in 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?

274 bars, about 17:21 at the written tempo. The course breaks it into 62 exercises over 19 sittings, about 26 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 The Best of Times?

22 fills to learn, played 61 times: bars 54, 56, 58, 60, 62, 64 and 55 more.

READ OFF THE SCORE ITSELF · 274 BARS ANALYSED