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The song of the widows · Highead

EXERCISE 23 OF 31
Join Part BL to Part CF (bars 90-92)
96 / 123 BARS COVERED
0 / 31 PASSED · 3 BARS LIT · IN THE PART BL, PART CF
CHORUS
PART AJ
PART BL
PART CF
PART B
BREAK 2
7 groovesS1BLAJS7CF+2Fill into the next barFill that ends a sectionInto the next partStop / hitRest
GROOVE · 3
FILL · 7
LAND · 7
RUN · 1
JOIN · 5
LINK · 2
SECTION · 5
WHOLE SONG · 1
ABOUT THIS DRUM PART

How to play The song of the widows on drums

118 bars of 3/4 -- not four -- at 73 BPM, 5:17 of playing on crash, ride, hi-hat, snare, high tom, mid tom, floor tom, kick and hi-hat foot.

86 out of 100. Hard, and what makes it hard is how much of it falls off the beat.

TEMPO
73 BPM
TIME
3/4
BARS
118
LENGTH
5:17
DIFFICULTY
86/100

toms through bar 1, silence through bars 2-5, hi-hat through bars 6-7, snare through bars 8-14, ride through bars 15-18 and hi-hat through bars 19-30, and 10 more changes after that.

The beat

The beat the song is built on is a 2-bar phrase, played through bars 69 and 71-74 -- 4.9% of every bar the kit plays. This one moves around more than most: the beat is where to start, not the whole job.

    71                                               72
    1...............2...............3............... 1...............2...............3...............
CC |x-----------x-----------------------------------|------------------------------------------------|
HH |--------x-----------g---o-------x-------x---ggg-|g---x---x-------x---g---o-------x---o---x---o---|
SD |----g---g-g-----g-g-----x-------g---g---g-g-g---|g---g---g-------g---g---x---g---g---x-g-g---x-g-|
FT |--------------------x---------------------------|------------------------------------------------|
BD |x-----------x-------X---x-----------X-----------|x-----------x---x-----------x-----------x-------|
HF |------------------------------------------------|----------------------------g-------------------|
The song of the widows -- the groove · x hit · o open hi-hat · g ghost note · r cross-stick · X accent

The fills

7 fills to learn, played 33 times: bars 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11 and 27 more.

What the course does

It cuts the song into 23 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 -- BL -- 1 exercise, about 23 minutes.
  2. The grooves the song is built on -- CF -- 1 exercise, about 21 minutes.
  3. The grooves the song is built on -- AJ -- 2 exercises, about 19 minutes.
  4. Through the Chorus -- 4 exercises, about 26 minutes.
  5. Through the Chorus -- 4 exercises, about 21 minutes.
  6. Through the Chorus and Part AJ -- 4 exercises, about 25 minutes.
  7. Through Part AJ and Part BL -- 6 exercises, about 30 minutes.
  8. Bars 88-108 -- 6 exercises, about 26 minutes. Open above.
  9. and 1 more sittings after that.
START THE COURSE ↑

Questions

What BPM is The song of the widows?

73 BPM, in 3/4, with the time kept in thirty-second notes. Slow enough to hear every mistake, which is why the room lets you sit at the written tempo rather than under it.

Is The song of the widows hard to play on drums?

86 out of 100. Hard, and what makes it hard is how much of it falls off the beat. The beat itself is 100 out of 100; the rest of the number is everything around it.

How long is the drum part?

118 bars, about 5:17 at the written tempo. The course breaks it into 23 exercises over 9 sittings, about 23 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 song of the widows?

7 fills to learn, played 33 times: bars 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11 and 27 more.

READ OFF THE SCORE ITSELF · 118 BARS ANALYSED