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Undertow · As I Lay Dying

EXERCISE 27 OF 62
Join Chorus to Part B (bars 55-57)
131 / 214 BARS COVERED
0 / 62 PASSED · 3 BARS LIT · IN THE CHORUS, PART B
PART D
CHORUS
PART B
CHORUS 3
PART Z
CHORUS 5
11 groovesGZDPB+6Fill into the next barFill that ends a sectionInto the next partStop / hitRest
GROOVE · 14
FILL · 10
LAND · 10
RUN · 3
JOIN · 14
LINK · 3
SECTION · 7
WHOLE SONG · 1
ABOUT THIS DRUM PART

How to play Undertow on drums

214 bars at 220 BPM -- fast, and 3:53 of it without a break -- on crash, ride, hi-hat, snare, high tom, mid tom, floor tom and kick.

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

TEMPO
220 BPM
TIME
4/4
BARS
214
LENGTH
3:53
DIFFICULTY
47/100

snare through bars 1-14, ride through bars 15-16, snare through bars 17-22, ride through bars 23-25, hi-hat through bars 26-32 and snare through bars 33-66, and 13 more changes after that.

The beat

The beat the song is built on is one bar, played through bars 25-31, 33 and 35, and 22 more places -- 20.1% of every bar the kit plays. This one moves around more than most: the beat is where to start, not the whole job.

    41
    1e+a2e+a3e+a4e+a
CC |x-------x-------|
BD |xxx-x-x---x-x-x-|
Undertow -- the groove · x hit · o open hi-hat · g ghost note · r cross-stick · X accent

The fills

10 fills to learn, played 35 times: bars 8, 15, 16, 23, 24, 32 and 29 more.

What the course does

It cuts the song into 51 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 -- G, L (a two-bar phrase) -- 2 exercises, about 20 minutes.
  2. The grooves the song is built on -- D -- 4 exercises, about 29 minutes.
  3. Through Part A -- 2 exercises, about 17 minutes.
  4. Bars 3-9 -- 5 exercises, about 30 minutes.
  5. Bars 7-33 -- 6 exercises, about 25 minutes.
  6. Through the Chorus -- 7 exercises, about 30 minutes.
  7. Bars 55-127 -- 3 exercises, about 28 minutes. Open above.
  8. Bars 68-84 -- 7 exercises, about 29 minutes.
  9. and 6 more sittings after that.
START THE COURSE ↑

Questions

What BPM is Undertow?

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

Is Undertow hard to play on drums?

47 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 18 out of 100; the rest of the number is everything around it.

How long is the drum part?

214 bars, about 3:53 at the written tempo. The course breaks it into 51 exercises over 14 sittings, about 26 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 Undertow?

10 fills to learn, played 35 times: bars 8, 15, 16, 23, 24, 32 and 29 more.

READ OFF THE SCORE ITSELF · 214 BARS ANALYSED