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Undefined · As I Lay Dying

EXERCISE 6 OF 35
Groove F -- Part F (a two-bar phrase)
50 / 98 BARS COVERED
0 / 35 PASSED · 12 BARS LIT · IN THE PART F, OUTRO
PART S2
CHORUS
PART D
PART F
PART H
PART J
PART K
CHORUS 2
OUTRO
7 groovesCDFJK+2Fill into the next barFill that ends a sectionInto the next partStop / hitRest
GROOVE · 7
FILL · 2
LAND · 2
RUN · 2
JOIN · 10
LINK · 6
SECTION · 5
WHOLE SONG · 1
ABOUT THIS DRUM PART

How to play Undefined on drums

98 bars at 175 BPM -- fast, and 2:13 of it without a break -- on crash, hi-hat, snare, mid tom, floor tom and kick.

80 out of 100. Hard, and what makes it hard is the independence between the hands and the feet.

TEMPO
175 BPM
TIME
4/4
BARS
98
LENGTH
2:13
DIFFICULTY
80/100

kick and crashes through bars 1-8, snare through bars 9-24, hi-hat through bars 25-40, snare through bars 41-56, hi-hat through bars 57-64 and snare through bars 65-72, and 3 more changes after that.

The beat

The beat the song is built on is one bar, played through bars 9-24 and 75-90 -- 33% of every bar the kit plays. That is the spine of it; everything else is what happens around it.

    9
    1.......2.......3.......4.......
CC |x-------x-------x-------x-------|
SD |--------x---------------x-------|
BD |x--x-x--x--x-x--x--x-x--x--x-x--|
Undefined -- the groove · x hit · o open hi-hat · g ghost note · r cross-stick · X accent

The fills

2 fills to learn, played 3 times: bars 28, 73 and 74.

What the course does

It cuts the song into 32 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 23 minutes.
  2. The grooves the song is built on -- D -- 3 exercises, about 24 minutes.
  3. The grooves the song is built on -- F -- 4 exercises, about 29 minutes. Open above.
  4. Bars 21-44 -- 5 exercises, about 24 minutes.
  5. Through Part F and Part H -- 3 exercises, about 27 minutes.
  6. Through Part H and Part D -- 3 exercises, about 27 minutes.
  7. Through Part D and Part J -- 2 exercises, about 27 minutes.
  8. Bars 64-75 -- 5 exercises, about 30 minutes.
  9. and 2 more sittings after that.
START THE COURSE ↑

Questions

What BPM is Undefined?

175 BPM, in 4/4, with the time kept in thirty-second notes. At that speed the thirty-second notes are the whole difficulty, so the room will take it down to a quarter of it and climb back.

Is Undefined hard to play on drums?

80 out of 100. Hard, and what makes it hard is the independence between the hands and the feet. The beat itself is 70 out of 100; the rest of the number is everything around it.

How long is the drum part?

98 bars, about 2:13 at the written tempo. The course breaks it into 32 exercises over 10 sittings, about 25 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 Undefined?

2 fills to learn, played 3 times: bars 28, 73 and 74.

READ OFF THE SCORE ITSELF · 98 BARS ANALYSED