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Unchained · Van Halen

EXERCISE 1 OF 41
Groove E -- Chorus
0 / 115 BARS COVERED
0 / 41 PASSED · 28 BARS LIT · IN THE CHORUS, CHORUS 2, CHORUS 3
COUNT-IN
CHORUS
PART N
CHORUS 2
PART N
PART N
PART Z
CHORUS 3
OUTRO
8 groovesENJZS1+3Fill into the next barFill that ends a sectionInto the next partStop / hitRest
GROOVE · 13
FILL · 3
LAND · 3
RUN · 2
JOIN · 10
LINK · 2
SECTION · 7
WHOLE SONG · 1
ABOUT THIS DRUM PART

How to play Unchained on drums

115 bars of 4/4 at 137 BPM, about 3:15 of playing, on crash, hi-hat, snare, high tom, mid tom, floor tom, kick and hi-hat foot.

63 out of 100, a step up from a first song, and the work is in how many notes a second it asks for.

TEMPO
137 BPM
TIME
4/4
BARS
115
LENGTH
3:15
DIFFICULTY
63/100

silence through bars 1-6, snare through bars 7-9, hi-hat through bars 10-25, snare through bars 26-31, toms through bars 32-33 and snare through bars 34-41, and 9 more changes after that.

The beat

The beat the song is built on is one bar, played through bars 10-16, 18-24 and 42-48, and 1 more place -- 25.7% of every bar the kit plays. That is the spine of it; everything else is what happens around it.

    11
    1...........2...........3...........4...........
HH |x-----x-----x-----x-----x-----x-----x-----x-----|
SD |------------x-----------------------x-----------|
BD |x-----x-----x-----x-----x-----x-----x-----x-----|
Unchained -- the groove · x hit · o open hi-hat · g ghost note · r cross-stick · X accent

The fills

3 fills to learn, played 5 times: bars 81, 87, 113, 114 and 115.

What the course does

It cuts the song into 37 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 -- E, N -- 2 exercises, about 24 minutes.
  2. The grooves the song is built on -- J -- 2 exercises, about 30 minutes.
  3. Through the Chorus -- 2 exercises, about 21 minutes.
  4. Through the Chorus -- 2 exercises, about 30 minutes.
  5. Through the Chorus and Part J -- 4 exercises, about 26 minutes.
  6. Through Part J and Part N -- 3 exercises, about 21 minutes.
  7. Bars 37-111 -- 4 exercises, about 29 minutes.
  8. Through Part N and Part T -- 4 exercises, about 30 minutes.
  9. and 4 more sittings after that.
START THE COURSE ↑

Questions

What BPM is Unchained?

137 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 Unchained hard to play on drums?

63 out of 100, a step up from a first song, and the work is in how many notes a second it asks for. The beat itself is 41 out of 100; the rest of the number is everything around it.

How long is the drum part?

115 bars, about 3:15 at the written tempo. The course breaks it into 37 exercises over 12 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 Unchained?

3 fills to learn, played 5 times: bars 81, 87, 113, 114 and 115.

READ OFF THE SCORE ITSELF · 115 BARS ANALYSED