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Toxicity · System of a Down

EXERCISE 26 OF 37
Groove N -- Part N
119 / 144 BARS COVERED
0 / 37 PASSED · 4 BARS LIT · IN THE PART N
COUNT-IN
PART D
CHORUS
PART N
OUTRO
OUTRO 2
7 groovesJMDSS1+2Fill into the next barFill that ends a sectionInto the next partStop / hitRest
GROOVE · 8
FILL · 7
LAND · 7
RUN · 2
JOIN · 5
LINK · 2
SECTION · 5
WHOLE SONG · 1
ABOUT THIS DRUM PART

How to play Toxicity on drums

144 bars of 3/4 -- not four -- at 114 BPM, 3:48 of playing on crash, hi-hat, snare, high tom, mid tom, floor tom, kick and hi-hat foot.

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

TEMPO
114 BPM
TIME
3/4
BARS
144
LENGTH
3:48
DIFFICULTY
66/100

silence through bars 1-10, hi-hat through bars 11-16, toms through bars 17-18, hi-hat through bars 19-56, toms through bars 57-58 and hi-hat through bars 59-96, and 8 more changes after that.

The beat

The beat the song is built on is one bar, played through bars 25-27, 29-31 and 33-35, and 6 more places -- 29.3% of every bar the kit plays. That is the spine of it; everything else is what happens around it.

    26
    1e+a2e+a3e+a
HH |x-x-x-x-x-x-|
SD |---g--x--x--|
BD |x----x----x-|
Toxicity -- the groove · x hit · o open hi-hat · g ghost note · r cross-stick · X accent

The fills

7 fills to learn, played 17 times: bars 10, 14, 22, 24, 48, 50 and 11 more.

What the course does

It cuts the song into 29 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 -- J -- 3 exercises, about 20 minutes.
  2. The grooves the song is built on -- D -- 5 exercises, about 25 minutes.
  3. The grooves the song is built on -- B (a two-bar phrase) -- 3 exercises, about 30 minutes.
  4. Through Part D and the Chorus -- 5 exercises, about 19 minutes.
  5. Through the Chorus -- 4 exercises, about 28 minutes.
  6. Bars 103-124 -- 5 exercises, about 30 minutes.
  7. Bars 111-117 -- 4 exercises, about 28 minutes. Open above.
  8. Through the Outro and the Outro 2 -- 4 exercises, about 27 minutes.
  9. and 1 more sittings after that.
START THE COURSE ↑

Questions

What BPM is Toxicity?

114 BPM, in 3/4, 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 Toxicity hard to play on drums?

66 out of 100: demanding, mostly on the independence between the hands and the feet. The beat itself is 50 out of 100; the rest of the number is everything around it.

How long is the drum part?

144 bars, about 3:48 at the written tempo. The course breaks it into 29 exercises over 9 sittings, about 26 minutes each.

What do I need on the kit?

crash, 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 Toxicity?

7 fills to learn, played 17 times: bars 10, 14, 22, 24, 48, 50 and 11 more.

READ OFF THE SCORE ITSELF · 144 BARS ANALYSED