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The Sun Fired Blanks · Dark Tranquillity

EXERCISE 7 OF 54
Groove F
73 / 153 BARS COVERED
0 / 54 PASSED · 3 BARS LIT · IN THE PART E
PART E
PART M
PART E
CHORUS
PART M
PART E
PART T
PART X
PART Z
OUTRO
OUTRO 2
9 groovesQEMTZ+4Fill into the next barFill that ends a sectionInto the next partStop / hitRest
GROOVE · 15
FILL · 4
LAND · 4
RUN · 2
JOIN · 12
LINK · 9
SECTION · 7
WHOLE SONG · 1
ABOUT THIS DRUM PART

How to play The Sun Fired Blanks on drums

153 bars of 4/4 at 145 BPM, about 4:12 of playing, on crash, ride, hi-hat, snare, high tom, mid tom, floor tom and kick.

69 out of 100: demanding, mostly on the independence between the hands and the feet.

TEMPO
145 BPM
TIME
4/4
BARS
153
LENGTH
4:12
DIFFICULTY
69/100

kick and crashes through bars 1-6, toms through bars 7-8, hi-hat through bars 9-134, toms through bars 135-136 and hi-hat through bars 137-153.

The beat

The beat the song is built on is one bar, played through bars 50-52, 54-56 and 58-60, and 5 more places -- 15.7% of every bar the kit plays. This one moves around more than most: the beat is where to start, not the whole job.

    50
    1e+a2e+a3e+a4e+a
HH |o---o---o---o---|
SD |----x-------x---|
BD |x--x-x--x--x-x--|
The Sun Fired Blanks -- the groove · x hit · o open hi-hat · g ghost note · r cross-stick · X accent

The fills

4 fills to learn, played 6 times: bars 7, 8, 24, 35, 74 and 152.

What the course does

It cuts the song into 49 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 -- Q -- 1 exercise, about 16 minutes.
  2. The grooves the song is built on -- E -- 4 exercises, about 31 minutes.
  3. The grooves the song is built on -- M -- 1 exercise, about 13 minutes.
  4. Through Part E -- 1 exercise, about 19 minutes. Open above.
  5. Through Part E and Part G -- 3 exercises, about 26 minutes.
  6. Through Part G and Part I -- 2 exercises, about 25 minutes.
  7. Through Part I and Part M -- 4 exercises, about 17 minutes.
  8. Through Part M and Part E -- 5 exercises, about 28 minutes.
  9. and 9 more sittings after that.
START THE COURSE ↑

Questions

What BPM is The Sun Fired Blanks?

145 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 Sun Fired Blanks hard to play on drums?

69 out of 100: demanding, mostly on the independence between the hands and the feet. The beat itself is 57 out of 100; the rest of the number is everything around it.

How long is the drum part?

153 bars, about 4:12 at the written tempo. The course breaks it into 49 exercises over 17 sittings, about 23 minutes each.

What do I need on the kit?

crash, ride, hi-hat, snare, high tom, 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 Sun Fired Blanks?

4 fills to learn, played 6 times: bars 7, 8, 24, 35, 74 and 152.

READ OFF THE SCORE ITSELF · 153 BARS ANALYSED