The Shattered Fortress · Dream Theater

403 bars at 198 BPM -- fast, and 9:35 of it without a break -- on crash, ride, hi-hat, snare, high tom, mid tom, floor tom, kick and hi-hat foot.

ProgressiveMetal150 BPM and upAdvanced
TEMPO
198 BPM
TIME
4/4
BARS
403
LENGTH
9:35
DIFFICULTY
66/100
THE BEAT

One bar, and 8% of the song

The beat the song is built on is one bar, played through bars 160-161, 164 and 282, and 7 more places -- 7.6% of every bar the kit plays. This one moves around more than most: the beat is where to start, not the whole job.

LOOP · 198 BPM
THE SHATTERED FORTRESS · BAR 160
THE FILLS

Where it comes off the beat

32 fills to learn, played 58 times: bars 31, 39, 55, 59, 67, 70 and 52 more.

LOOP · 198 BPM
BAR 31 · LANDS ON BAR 32
LOOP · 198 BPM
BAR 39 · LANDS ON BAR 40
LOOP · 198 BPM
BAR 55 · LANDS ON BAR 56
LOOP · 198 BPM
BAR 59 · LANDS ON BAR 60

28 more fills are written out on the fills page.

THE SHAPE

How the song is built

403 bars across 28 sections: 196 keep time, 58 are fills, 48 are stops and 72 are silent. The longest unbroken stretch of time is bars 241-263.

PART AE
PART BR
PART AT
OUTRO 2
24 groovesS28ATBRAEBB+19Fill into the next barFill that ends a sectionInto the next partStop / hitRest

Questions

What BPM is The Shattered Fortress?

198 BPM, in 4/4, with the time kept in sixteenth notes. At that speed the sixteenth notes are the whole difficulty, so the room will take it down to a quarter of it and climb back.

Is The Shattered Fortress hard to play on drums?

66 out of 100: demanding, mostly on the independence between the hands and the feet. The beat itself is 42 out of 100; the rest of the number is everything around it.

How long is the drum part?

403 bars, about 9:35 at the written tempo. The course breaks it into 125 exercises over 36 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 Shattered Fortress?

32 fills to learn, played 58 times: bars 31, 39, 55, 59, 67, 70 and 52 more.

READ OFF THE SCORE ITSELF · 403 BARS ANALYSED
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