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The Illusion Of Power · Black Sabbath

EXERCISE 1 OF 19
Groove G -- Chorus 2 (a two-bar phrase)
0 / 67 BARS COVERED
0 / 19 PASSED · 19 BARS LIT · IN THE CHORUS, CHORUS 2, OUTRO
PART S2
PART F
CHORUS
PART E
CHORUS 2
PART I
OUTRO
OUTRO 2
7 groovesGS9EFI+2Fill into the next barFill that ends a sectionInto the next partStop / hitRest
GROOVE · 5
RUN · 1
JOIN · 5
LINK · 5
SECTION · 2
WHOLE SONG · 1
ABOUT THIS DRUM PART

How to play The Illusion Of Power on drums

67 bars, 4:28, at 60 BPM: slow enough that every note is exposed. Crash, ride, hi-hat, snare, high tom, mid tom, floor tom and kick and nothing else.

57 out of 100, a step up from a first song, and the work is in how fine the subdivision is.

TEMPO
60 BPM
TIME
4/4
BARS
67
LENGTH
4:28
DIFFICULTY
57/100

silence through bars 1-9 and ride through bars 10-67.

The beat

The beat the song is built on is a 2-bar phrase, played through bars 18-21, 30-37 and 46-48, and 1 more place -- 30.2% of every bar the kit plays. That is the spine of it; everything else is what happens around it.

    18                                               19
    1...........2...........3...........4........... 1...........2...........3...........4...........
CC |------------x-----------------------x-----------|------------------------------------------------|
HH |o-----o-----o-----o-----o-----o-----o-----o-----|------------------------------------------------|
SD |------------x-----------------------x-----------|------------------------------------------------|
T1 |------------------------------------------------|x--x--x--x--x-----------------------------------|
T2 |------------------------------------------------|------------------------x--x--x--x--------x--x--|
FT |------------------------------------------------|------------------------------------x-----------|
BD |x-----------x-----------x-----------x-----------|x--x--x--x--x-----------x--x--x--x--x-----x--x--|
The Illusion Of Power -- the groove · x hit · o open hi-hat · g ghost note · r cross-stick · X accent

The fills

There are no fills to speak of: the part holds one beat the whole way through.

What the course does

It cuts the song into 18 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 -- G, E -- 2 exercises, about 28 minutes. Open above.
  2. The grooves the song is built on -- I -- 2 exercises, about 19 minutes.
  3. Through Part F -- 3 exercises, about 35 minutes.
  4. Bars 14-33 -- 6 exercises, about 30 minutes.
  5. Bars 34-67 -- 5 exercises, about 24 minutes.
  6. The whole song -- 1 exercise, about 10 minutes.
START THE COURSE ↑

Questions

What BPM is The Illusion Of Power?

60 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 Illusion Of Power hard to play on drums?

57 out of 100, a step up from a first song, and the work is in how fine the subdivision is. The beat itself is 47 out of 100; the rest of the number is everything around it.

How long is the drum part?

67 bars, about 4:28 at the written tempo. The course breaks it into 18 exercises over 6 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.

READ OFF THE SCORE ITSELF · 67 BARS ANALYSED