← SONGS

This Was My Life · Megadeth

EXERCISE 25 OF 48
Fill at bar 49 (a small one)
91 / 123 BARS COVERED
0 / 48 PASSED · 1 BAR LIT · IN THE CHORUS 2
PART A
CHORUS
PART D
CHORUS 2
PART D
PART O
PART D
OUTRO
OUTRO 2
8 groovesHDOUA+3Fill into the next barFill that ends a sectionInto the next partStop / hitRest
GROOVE · 10
FILL · 7
LAND · 7
RUN · 2
JOIN · 8
LINK · 6
SECTION · 7
WHOLE SONG · 1
ABOUT THIS DRUM PART

How to play This Was My Life on drums

123 bars of 4/4 at 136 BPM, about 3:37 of playing, on crash, ride, hi-hat, snare, high tom, mid tom, floor tom and kick.

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

TEMPO
136 BPM
TIME
4/4
BARS
123
LENGTH
3:37
DIFFICULTY
54/100

hi-hat through bars 3-10, ride through bars 11-16, hi-hat through bars 17-25, ride through bars 26-35, hi-hat through bars 36-58 and ride through bars 59-68, and 4 more changes after that.

The beat

The beat the song is built on is one bar, played through bars 17-19, 21-23 and 42-44, and 3 more places -- 14.9% of every bar the kit plays. This one moves around more than most: the beat is where to start, not the whole job.

    18
    1e+a2e+a3e+a4e+a
HH |o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-|
SD |----x-------x---|
BD |--x-----x-x---x-|
This Was My Life -- the groove · x hit · o open hi-hat · g ghost note · r cross-stick · X accent

The fills

7 fills to learn, played 12 times: bars 4, 16, 35, 37, 41, 49 and 6 more.

What the course does

It cuts the song into 40 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, U -- 2 exercises, about 26 minutes.
  2. The grooves the song is built on -- D -- 5 exercises, about 35 minutes.
  3. Through Part A and the Chorus -- 5 exercises, about 21 minutes.
  4. Through Part A and the Chorus -- 2 exercises, about 20 minutes.
  5. Through Part K -- 2 exercises, about 28 minutes.
  6. Bars 25-43 -- 8 exercises, about 32 minutes.
  7. Bars 40-76 -- 5 exercises, about 26 minutes. Open above.
  8. Bars 67-99 -- 7 exercises, about 29 minutes.
  9. and 3 more sittings after that.
START THE COURSE ↑

Questions

What BPM is This Was My Life?

136 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 This Was My Life hard to play on drums?

54 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 45 out of 100; the rest of the number is everything around it.

How long is the drum part?

123 bars, about 3:37 at the written tempo. The course breaks it into 40 exercises over 11 sittings, about 25 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 This Was My Life?

7 fills to learn, played 12 times: bars 4, 16, 35, 37, 41, 49 and 6 more.

READ OFF THE SCORE ITSELF · 123 BARS ANALYSED