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The Four Horsemen · Metallica

EXERCISE 13 OF 78
Groove M -- Chorus (a two-bar phrase)
179 / 325 BARS COVERED
0 / 78 PASSED · 18 BARS LIT
PART G
PART H
CHORUS
CHORUS 2
PART J
PART I
PART X
PART L
OUTRO
17 groovesMHXGJ+12Fill into the next barFill that ends a sectionInto the next partStop / hitRest
GROOVE · 18
FILL · 12
LAND · 12
RUN · 2
JOIN · 14
LINK · 8
SECTION · 11
WHOLE SONG · 1
ABOUT THIS DRUM PART

How to play The Four Horsemen on drums

325 bars at 204 BPM -- fast, and 6:21 of it without a break -- on crash, ride, hi-hat, snare, high tom, mid tom, floor tom and kick.

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

TEMPO
204 BPM
TIME
4/4
BARS
325
LENGTH
6:21
DIFFICULTY
81/100

kick and crashes through bars 1-2, silence through bars 3-7, kick and crashes through bars 8-9, silence through bars 10-15, hi-hat through bars 16-50 and ride through bars 51-64, and 18 more changes after that.

The beat

The beat the song is built on is one bar, played through bars 29, 36 and 39, and 38 more places -- 13.4% of every bar the kit plays. This one moves around more than most: the beat is where to start, not the whole job.

    117
    1.......2.......3.......4.......
CC |------------------------x-------|
HH |x-------x-------x---------------|
SD |--------x---------------x-------|
BD |x---x-----------x---x-----------|
The Four Horsemen -- the groove · x hit · o open hi-hat · g ghost note · r cross-stick · X accent

The fills

12 fills to learn, played 24 times: bars 44, 57, 64, 86, 99, 106 and 18 more.

What the course does

It cuts the song into 65 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 -- H -- 1 exercise, about 15 minutes.
  2. The grooves the song is built on -- J -- 1 exercise, about 16 minutes.
  3. The grooves the song is built on -- I -- 1 exercise, about 15 minutes.
  4. Through Part G -- 1 exercise, about 19 minutes.
  5. Through Part G -- 3 exercises, about 28 minutes.
  6. Through Part G and Part H -- 4 exercises, about 18 minutes.
  7. Through Part H -- 1 exercise, about 15 minutes.
  8. Through the Chorus -- 3 exercises, about 23 minutes. Open above.
  9. and 16 more sittings after that.
START THE COURSE ↑

Questions

What BPM is The Four Horsemen?

204 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 The Four Horsemen hard to play on drums?

81 out of 100. Hard, and what makes it hard is 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?

325 bars, about 6:21 at the written tempo. The course breaks it into 65 exercises over 24 sittings, about 24 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 The Four Horsemen?

12 fills to learn, played 24 times: bars 44, 57, 64, 86, 99, 106 and 18 more.

READ OFF THE SCORE ITSELF · 325 BARS ANALYSED