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The Mirror · Dream Theater

EXERCISE 28 OF 93
Run I1 · Part I (bars 44-52)
112 / 204 BARS COVERED
0 / 93 PASSED · 9 BARS LIT · IN THE PART I
PART D
CHORUS
PART I
PART L
CHORUS 2
PART R
CHORUS 3
PART U
PART AT
BREAK 2
16 groovesFUATS20L+11Fill into the next barFill that ends a sectionInto the next partStop / hitRest
GROOVE · 16
FILL · 17
LAND · 17
RUN · 4
JOIN · 18
LINK · 10
SECTION · 10
WHOLE SONG · 1
ABOUT THIS DRUM PART

How to play The Mirror on drums

204 bars of 4/4 at a walking 82 BPM, 10:48 of playing, on crash, ride, hi-hat, snare, high tom, mid tom, floor tom, kick and hi-hat foot.

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

TEMPO
82 BPM
TIME
4/4
BARS
204
LENGTH
10:48
DIFFICULTY
59/100

silence through bars 1-3, hi-hat through bars 4-7, ride through bars 8-15, hi-hat through bars 16-47, toms through bars 48-49 and hi-hat through bars 50-71, and 20 more changes after that.

The beat

The beat the song is built on is one bar, played through bars 16-30, 32-39 and 66-81, and 1 more place -- 29.2% of every bar the kit plays. That is the spine of it; everything else is what happens around it.

    17
    1e+a2e+a3e+a4e+a
HH |o---o---o---o---|
SD |----x-------x---|
BD |x-x---x-x-x---x-|
The Mirror -- the groove · x hit · o open hi-hat · g ghost note · r cross-stick · X accent

The fills

17 fills to learn, played 37 times: bars 3, 15, 31, 48, 49, 57 and 31 more.

What the course does

It cuts the song into 75 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 -- F, AT -- 4 exercises, about 28 minutes.
  2. The grooves the song is built on -- L -- 4 exercises, about 29 minutes.
  3. Through the Break and Part D -- 4 exercises, about 29 minutes.
  4. Through Part D and the Chorus -- 7 exercises, about 26 minutes.
  5. Through the Chorus and Part H -- 3 exercises, about 21 minutes.
  6. Through Part H and Part I -- 5 exercises, about 29 minutes.
  7. Through Part I and Part L -- 6 exercises, about 31 minutes. Open above.
  8. Bars 53-94 -- 6 exercises, about 28 minutes.
  9. and 11 more sittings after that.
START THE COURSE ↑

Questions

What BPM is The Mirror?

82 BPM, in 4/4, with the time kept in sixteenth notes. The room plays it at any tempo from a quarter of that up to the written one, against the record where the record can follow.

Is The Mirror hard to play on drums?

59 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 29 out of 100; the rest of the number is everything around it.

How long is the drum part?

204 bars, about 10:48 at the written tempo. The course breaks it into 75 exercises over 19 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 Mirror?

17 fills to learn, played 37 times: bars 3, 15, 31, 48, 49, 57 and 31 more.

READ OFF THE SCORE ITSELF · 204 BARS ANALYSED