The Great Debate · Dream Theater

409 bars at 164 BPM -- fast, and 13:30 of it without a break -- on crash, ride, hi-hat, snare, high tom, mid tom, floor tom, kick and hi-hat foot.

ProgressiveRock150 BPM and upAdvanced
TEMPO
164 BPM
TIME
4/4
BARS
409
LENGTH
13:30
DIFFICULTY
64/100
THE BEAT

One bar, and 5% of the song

The beat the song is built on is one bar, played through bars 249-263 -- 5% of every bar the kit plays. This one moves around more than most: the beat is where to start, not the whole job.

LOOP · 164 BPM
THE GREAT DEBATE · BAR 251
THE FILLS

Where it comes off the beat

18 fills to learn, played 28 times: bars 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 47 and 22 more.

LOOP · 164 BPM
BARS 28-32 · LANDS ON BAR 33 · PLAYED 5 TIMES
LOOP · 164 BPM
BARS 47-48 · LANDS ON BAR 49 · PLAYED 2 TIMES
LOOP · 164 BPM
BAR 54 · LANDS ON BAR 55 · PLAYED 3 TIMES
LOOP · 164 BPM
BARS 63-64 · LANDS ON BAR 65 · PLAYED 2 TIMES

14 more fills are written out on the fills page.

THE SHAPE

How the song is built

409 bars across 36 sections: 220 keep time, 28 are fills, 2 are stops and 106 are silent. The longest unbroken stretch of time is bars 250-267.

BREAK
35 groovesS36CTBXBNAX+30Fill into the next barFill that ends a sectionInto the next partStop / hitRest

Questions

What BPM is The Great Debate?

164 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 Great Debate hard to play on drums?

64 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 48 out of 100; the rest of the number is everything around it.

How long is the drum part?

409 bars, about 13:30 at the written tempo. The course breaks it into 144 exercises over 49 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 Great Debate?

18 fills to learn, played 28 times: bars 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 47 and 22 more.

READ OFF THE SCORE ITSELF · 409 BARS ANALYSED
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