← SONGS

The Possession · King Diamond

EXERCISE 4 OF 59
Groove B
32 / 111 BARS COVERED
0 / 59 PASSED · 4 BARS LIT · IN THE PART C
PART C
CHORUS
PART K
CHORUS 2
PART K
PART U
PART AB
PART AL
PART K
CHORUS 3
OUTRO 2
9 groovesFKABALC+4Fill into the next barFill that ends a sectionInto the next partStop / hitRest
GROOVE · 13
FILL · 10
LAND · 10
RUN · 3
JOIN · 9
LINK · 6
SECTION · 7
WHOLE SONG · 1
ABOUT THIS DRUM PART

How to play The Possession on drums

111 bars of 4/4 at 137 BPM, about 3:14 of playing, on crash, ride, hi-hat, snare, high tom, mid tom, floor tom and kick.

73 out of 100: demanding, mostly on the independence between the hands and the feet.

TEMPO
137 BPM
TIME
4/4
BARS
111
LENGTH
3:14
DIFFICULTY
73/100

hi-hat through bars 3-20, ride through bars 21-37, hi-hat through bars 38-40, ride through bars 41-44, toms through bars 45-57 and silence through bars 58-65, and 5 more changes after that.

The beat

The beat the song is built on is a 2-bar phrase, played through bars 21-22, 25-26 and 41-43, and 3 more places -- 13.1% of every bar the kit plays. This one moves around more than most: the beat is where to start, not the whole job.

    21                                               22
    1...........2...........3...........4........... 1...........2...........3...........4...........
CC |x-----------------------------------------------|------------------------------------------------|
RD |------------x-----------x-----------x-----------|x-----------x-----------x-----------x-----------|
SD |------------x-----------------------x-----------|------------x-----------------------x-----------|
BD |x-----------------------x-----------------------|x-----------------------x-----------------x-----|
The Possession -- the groove · x hit · o open hi-hat · g ghost note · r cross-stick · X accent

The fills

10 fills to learn, played 22 times: bars 16, 20, 32, 36, 45, 46 and 16 more.

What the course does

It cuts the song into 48 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 -- K -- 1 exercise, about 14 minutes.
  2. The grooves the song is built on -- F -- 1 exercise, about 19 minutes.
  3. The grooves the song is built on -- J -- 1 exercise, about 17 minutes.
  4. Through Part C -- 3 exercises, about 35 minutes. Open above.
  5. Through Part C and the Chorus -- 4 exercises, about 32 minutes.
  6. Through the Chorus and Part K -- 6 exercises, about 24 minutes.
  7. Through the Chorus and Part K -- 2 exercises, about 24 minutes.
  8. Through Part K and the Chorus 2 -- 4 exercises, about 31 minutes.
  9. and 9 more sittings after that.
START THE COURSE ↑

Questions

What BPM is The Possession?

137 BPM, in 4/4, with the time kept in thirty-second 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 Possession hard to play on drums?

73 out of 100: demanding, mostly on the independence between the hands and the feet. The beat itself is 50 out of 100; the rest of the number is everything around it.

How long is the drum part?

111 bars, about 3:14 at the written tempo. The course breaks it into 48 exercises over 17 sittings, about 25 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 Possession?

10 fills to learn, played 22 times: bars 16, 20, 32, 36, 45, 46 and 16 more.

READ OFF THE SCORE ITSELF · 111 BARS ANALYSED