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The Root of All Evil · Dream Theater

EXERCISE 1 OF 57
Groove E -- Chorus
0 / 268 BARS COVERED
0 / 57 PASSED · 83 BARS LIT
COUNT-IN
CHORUS
PART H
CHORUS 2
PART H
CHORUS 3
PART Q
CHORUS 4
CHORUS 5
PART AG
CHORUS 6
PART Q
OUTRO
10 groovesEQHS1S2+5Fill into the next barFill that ends a sectionInto the next partStop / hitRest
GROOVE · 11
FILL · 10
LAND · 10
RUN · 3
JOIN · 9
LINK · 8
SECTION · 5
WHOLE SONG · 1
ABOUT THIS DRUM PART

How to play The Root of All Evil on drums

268 bars of 4/4 at 144 BPM, about 7:33 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
144 BPM
TIME
4/4
BARS
268
LENGTH
7:33
DIFFICULTY
59/100

silence through bars 1-27, toms through bars 28-35, snare through bars 36-51, hi-hat through bars 52-67, snare through bars 68-83 and hi-hat through bars 84-99, and 17 more changes after that.

The beat

The beat the song is built on is one bar, played through bars 36-44, 46 and 48, and 49 more places -- 34.7% of every bar the kit plays. That is the spine of it; everything else is what happens around it.

    44
    1e+a2e+a3e+a4e+a
CC |x---x---x---x---|
SD |----x-------x---|
BD |x-x---x---x---x-|
The Root of All Evil -- the groove · x hit · o open hi-hat · g ghost note · r cross-stick · X accent

The fills

10 fills to learn, played 23 times: bars 59, 67, 71, 83, 91, 99 and 17 more.

What the course does

It cuts the song into 46 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 -- E, Q -- 2 exercises, about 25 minutes.
  2. The grooves the song is built on -- H -- 4 exercises, about 28 minutes.
  3. Through Part H and the Chorus 2 -- 5 exercises, about 28 minutes.
  4. Through the Chorus 2 and Part H -- 7 exercises, about 34 minutes.
  5. Bars 93-237 -- 5 exercises, about 28 minutes.
  6. Through Part Q and the Chorus 4 -- 5 exercises, about 20 minutes.
  7. Through Part H and the Chorus 5 -- 3 exercises, about 19 minutes.
  8. Through the Chorus 5 and Part Y -- 3 exercises, about 23 minutes.
  9. and 5 more sittings after that.
START THE COURSE ↑

Questions

What BPM is The Root of All Evil?

144 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 Root of All Evil 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?

268 bars, about 7:33 at the written tempo. The course breaks it into 46 exercises over 13 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 Root of All Evil?

10 fills to learn, played 23 times: bars 59, 67, 71, 83, 91, 99 and 17 more.

READ OFF THE SCORE ITSELF · 268 BARS ANALYSED