HEAVEN PIERCE HER · DRUM FILLS

The drum fills in The World Looks Red

2 fills to learn, played 5 times across 145 bars. Two fills that share a rhythm and differ only in how they are spread round the toms are one fill here, learned once and orchestrated twice.

TEMPO
90 BPM
TIME
4/4
BARS
145
LENGTH
6:27
DIFFICULTY
79/100

Bar 16, and 1 more time

LOOP · 90 BPM
PLAYED AT BARS 16 AND 80 · LANDS ON BAR 17

On hi-hat, snare, floor tom and kick. 63 out of 100 -- a step up -- and what decides that is how many notes a second it asks for. In the song it lands on bar 17. The exercise loops the figure on its own first, and the one after it puts it back: one bar of rest to count yourself in, the figure, then the landing with the time still running. Getting out of a fill is the half most people never practise.

Bar 64, and 2 more times

LOOP · 90 BPM
PLAYED AT BARS 64, 128 AND 144 · LANDS ON BAR 65

On crash, snare, high tom, mid tom, floor tom and kick. 70 out of 100 -- demanding -- and what decides that is how many notes a second it asks for. In the song it lands on bar 65. The exercise loops the figure on its own first, and the one after it puts it back: one bar of rest to count yourself in, the figure, then the landing with the time still running. Getting out of a fill is the half most people never practise.

How a fill is practised

A fill is rhythm before it is orchestration. The room plays the whole figure on the snare first, puts the feet under it second, and moves it round the toms last -- looped on its own, round and round, until the hands know it. Then it puts the fill back where it lives: a bar of rest to count in, the figure, and the downbeat it lands on, because landing square is the other half of the job.

PRACTISE THESE FILLS →

Questions

How many drum fills are in The World Looks Red?

2 distinct fills, played 5 times: bars 16, 64, 80, 128 and 144.

What is the hardest fill in The World Looks Red?

The one at bar 64, at 77 out of 100. 145 bars of 4/4 at a walking 90 BPM, 6:27 of playing, on crash, ride, hi-hat, snare, high tom, mid tom, floor tom and kick.

READ OFF THE SCORE ITSELF · 145 BARS ANALYSED