The Sky Moves Sideways Phase 1 · Porcupine Tree

356 bars of 4/4 at 120 BPM, about 11:52 of playing, on crash, ride, hi-hat, snare and kick.

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

TEMPO

120 BPM

TIME

4/4

BARS

356

LENGTH

11:52

DIFFICULTY

60/100

silence through bars 1-4, ride through bars 5-67, silence through bars 68-99, hi-hat through bars 100-183, silence through bars 184-187 and hi-hat through bars 188-356.

The beat the song is built on is a 2-bar phrase, played through bars 100-103, 108-111 and 116-120, and 10 more places -- 11.4% of every bar the kit plays. This one moves around more than most: the beat is where to start, not the whole job.

    108              109
    1e+a2e+a3e+a4e+a 1e+a2e+a3e+a4e+a
CC |x---------------|----------------|
HH |----x---x---x---|x---x---x---x---|
SD |--------x-x-x---|--------x-x-x---|
BD |x-------------x-|x-----x---------|

2 fills to learn, played 10 times: bars 107, 117, 119, 121, 123, 125 and 4 more.

It cuts the song into 80 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 -- J, K -- 2 exercises, about 23 minutes.
2. The grooves the song is built on -- H -- 2 exercises, about 24 minutes.
3. Through Part C and Part B -- 5 exercises, about 29 minutes.
4. Bars 20-111 -- 8 exercises, about 35 minutes.
5. Through Part J and Part K -- 7 exercises, about 35 minutes.
6. Bars 133-164 -- 3 exercises, about 27 minutes. Open above.
7. Bars 162-184 -- 4 exercises, about 19 minutes.
8. Through Part Q -- 3 exercises, about 29 minutes.
9. and 15 more sittings after that.