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Threatening Skies · Obituary

EXERCISE 1 OF 22
Groove C -- Chorus
0 / 88 BARS COVERED
0 / 22 PASSED · 40 BARS LIT · IN THE CHORUS, CHORUS 2, OUTRO
CHORUS
CHORUS 2
PART I
OUTRO
OUTRO 2
4 groovesCFAIFill into the next barFill that ends a sectionInto the next partStop / hitRest
GROOVE · 5
FILL · 3
LAND · 3
RUN · 2
JOIN · 5
SECTION · 3
WHOLE SONG · 1
ABOUT THIS DRUM PART

How to play Threatening Skies on drums

88 bars of 4/4 at 150 BPM, about 2:21 of playing, on crash, hi-hat, snare, mid tom, floor tom and kick.

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

TEMPO
150 BPM
TIME
4/4
BARS
88
LENGTH
2:21
DIFFICULTY
78/100

toms through bars 1-4, hi-hat through bars 5-20, toms through bars 21-22, hi-hat through bars 23-62, toms through bars 63-66 and hi-hat through bars 67-88.

The beat

The beat the song is built on is one bar, played through bars 5-13, 15 and 17, and 13 more places -- 45.5% of every bar the kit plays. Learn that one and most of the song is already under your hands.

    5
    1...........2...........3...........4...........
CC |x-----------------------------------------------|
HH |------o-----o-----o-----o-----o-----o-----o-----|
SD |------x-----------x-----------x-----------x-----|
BD |x--------------xxx------x--------x-----x--------|
Threatening Skies -- the groove · x hit · o open hi-hat · g ghost note · r cross-stick · X accent

The fills

3 fills to learn, played 6 times: bars 4, 22, 34, 46, 54 and 66.

What the course does

It cuts the song into 18 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 -- C -- 2 exercises, about 24 minutes. Open above.
  2. The grooves the song is built on -- D -- 2 exercises, about 29 minutes.
  3. Through Part A and the Chorus -- 7 exercises, about 26 minutes.
  4. Bars 37-43 -- 3 exercises, about 25 minutes.
  5. Through Part F and Part I -- 4 exercises, about 30 minutes.
  6. The whole song -- 4 exercises, about 24 minutes.
START THE COURSE ↑

Questions

What BPM is Threatening Skies?

150 BPM, in 4/4, with the time kept in thirty-second 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 Threatening Skies hard to play on drums?

78 out of 100: demanding, mostly on the independence between the hands and the feet. The beat itself is 79 out of 100; the rest of the number is everything around it.

How long is the drum part?

88 bars, about 2:21 at the written tempo. The course breaks it into 18 exercises over 6 sittings, about 26 minutes each.

What do I need on the kit?

crash, hi-hat, snare, 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 Threatening Skies?

3 fills to learn, played 6 times: bars 4, 22, 34, 46, 54 and 66.

READ OFF THE SCORE ITSELF · 88 BARS ANALYSED