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The Gift Of Music · Dream Theater

EXERCISE 23 OF 54
Fill at bar 27 (a small one)
61 / 125 BARS COVERED
0 / 54 PASSED · 1 BAR LIT · IN THE PART J
PART A
PART D
PART J
PART S5
PART H
OUTRO
BREAK
9 groovesVHS5DS9+4Fill into the next barFill that ends a sectionInto the next partStop / hitRest
GROOVE · 8
FILL · 14
LAND · 14
RUN · 2
JOIN · 7
LINK · 3
SECTION · 5
WHOLE SONG · 1
ABOUT THIS DRUM PART

How to play The Gift Of Music on drums

125 bars at 160 BPM -- fast, and 3:34 of it without a break -- on crash, ride, hi-hat, snare, high tom, mid tom, floor tom, kick and hi-hat foot.

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

TEMPO
160 BPM
TIME
4/4
BARS
125
LENGTH
3:34
DIFFICULTY
57/100

kick and crashes through bars 1-8, hi-hat through bars 9-34, silence through bars 35-49, hi-hat through bars 50-105, toms through bars 106-107 and snare through bars 108-110, and 2 more changes after that.

The beat

The beat the song is built on is one bar, played through bars 16, 20-21 and 24-26, and 5 more places -- 23.5% of every bar the kit plays. This one moves around more than most: the beat is where to start, not the whole job.

    20
    1e+a2e+a3e+a4e+a
CC |x---------------|
HH |----o---o---o---|
SD |----x-------x---|
BD |x-------x-x-----|
The Gift Of Music -- the groove · x hit · o open hi-hat · g ghost note · r cross-stick · X accent

The fills

14 fills to learn, played 33 times: bars 8, 10, 12, 13, 17, 27 and 27 more.

What the course does

It cuts the song into 39 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, V -- 4 exercises, about 28 minutes.
  2. The grooves the song is built on -- D -- 5 exercises, about 27 minutes.
  3. Through Part A and Part D -- 7 exercises, about 31 minutes.
  4. Through Part D and Part J -- 6 exercises, about 34 minutes.
  5. Bars 27-58 -- 6 exercises, about 31 minutes. Open above.
  6. Bars 30-50 -- 5 exercises, about 31 minutes.
  7. Through Part R and Part H -- 7 exercises, about 30 minutes.
  8. Through Part H and the Outro -- 4 exercises, about 28 minutes.
  9. and 3 more sittings after that.
START THE COURSE ↑

Questions

What BPM is The Gift Of Music?

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 The Gift Of Music hard to play on drums?

57 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 40 out of 100; the rest of the number is everything around it.

How long is the drum part?

125 bars, about 3:34 at the written tempo. The course breaks it into 39 exercises over 11 sittings, about 28 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 Gift Of Music?

14 fills to learn, played 33 times: bars 8, 10, 12, 13, 17, 27 and 27 more.

READ OFF THE SCORE ITSELF · 125 BARS ANALYSED