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The Signal Fire · Killswitch Engage

EXERCISE 1 OF 50
Groove H -- Part H
0 / 158 BARS COVERED
0 / 50 PASSED · 43 BARS LIT
CHORUS 2
PART S4
PART H
CHORUS 3
PART H
PART M
CHORUS 4
PART Q
PART M
PART S13
BREAK
OUTRO
10 groovesAMHQK+5Fill into the next barFill that ends a sectionInto the next partStop / hitRest
GROOVE · 6
FILL · 10
LAND · 10
RUN · 2
JOIN · 11
LINK · 5
SECTION · 5
WHOLE SONG · 1
ABOUT THIS DRUM PART

How to play The Signal Fire on drums

158 bars at 206 BPM -- fast, and 3:04 of it without a break -- on crash, ride, hi-hat, snare, mid tom, floor tom and kick.

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

TEMPO
206 BPM
TIME
4/4
BARS
158
LENGTH
3:04
DIFFICULTY
61/100

hi-hat through bars 1-17, silence through bars 18-20, hi-hat through bars 21-35, snare through bars 36-44, hi-hat through bars 45-51 and snare through bars 52-62, and 8 more changes after that.

The beat

The beat the song is built on is one bar, played through bars 17-19, 21-27 and 61, and 11 more places -- 28.7% of every bar the kit plays. That is the spine of it; everything else is what happens around it.

    22
    1e+a2e+a3e+a4e+a
HH |o-------o-------|
SD |--------x-------|
BD |x---------------|
The Signal Fire -- the groove · x hit · o open hi-hat · g ghost note · r cross-stick · X accent

The fills

10 fills to learn, played 27 times: bars 4, 8, 12, 13, 14, 15 and 21 more.

What the course does

It cuts the song into 39 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 -- H, A -- 4 exercises, about 30 minutes.
  2. The grooves the song is built on -- M -- 1 exercise, about 15 minutes.
  3. Through the Chorus and Part C -- 4 exercises, about 30 minutes.
  4. Bars 5-17 -- 7 exercises, about 32 minutes.
  5. Bars 15-30 -- 5 exercises, about 34 minutes.
  6. Bars 28-61 -- 9 exercises, about 31 minutes.
  7. Bars 37-82 -- 7 exercises, about 34 minutes.
  8. Through the Chorus 4 and Part Q -- 5 exercises, about 26 minutes.
  9. and 2 more sittings after that.
START THE COURSE ↑

Questions

What BPM is The Signal Fire?

206 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 Signal Fire hard to play on drums?

61 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 26 out of 100; the rest of the number is everything around it.

How long is the drum part?

158 bars, about 3:04 at the written tempo. The course breaks it into 39 exercises over 10 sittings, about 27 minutes each.

What do I need on the kit?

crash, ride, hi-hat, snare, 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 Signal Fire?

10 fills to learn, played 27 times: bars 4, 8, 12, 13, 14, 15 and 21 more.

READ OFF THE SCORE ITSELF · 158 BARS ANALYSED