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Unholy War · Atheist

EXERCISE 5 OF 51
Groove B -- Outro 2
60 / 132 BARS COVERED
0 / 51 PASSED · 5 BARS LIT · IN THE CHORUS, OUTRO 2
CHORUS
PART I
CHORUS 2
PART K
PART V
CHORUS 3
OUTRO
OUTRO 2
6 groovesDKBVI+1Fill into the next barFill that ends a sectionInto the next partStop / hitRest
GROOVE · 14
FILL · 8
LAND · 8
RUN · 1
JOIN · 8
LINK · 6
SECTION · 5
WHOLE SONG · 1
ABOUT THIS DRUM PART

How to play Unholy War on drums

132 bars at 267 BPM -- fast, and 1:59 of it without a break -- on crash, ride, hi-hat, snare, high tom, mid tom, floor tom, kick and hi-hat foot.

95 out of 100. Hard, and what makes it hard is how many notes a second it asks for.

TEMPO
267 BPM
TIME
4/4
BARS
132
LENGTH
1:59
DIFFICULTY
95/100

snare through bars 1-7, hi-hat through bars 8-39, ride through bars 40-45, snare through bars 46-47, ride through bars 48-53 and toms through bars 54-55, and 7 more changes after that.

The beat

The beat the song is built on is one bar, played through bars 8-10, 12-14 and 16-18, and 13 more places -- 36.4% of every bar the kit plays. Learn that one and most of the song is already under your hands.

    8
    1.......2.......3.......4.......
HH |o---o---o---o---o---o---o---o---|
SD |----x-------x-------x-------x---|
BD |x-------x-------x-------x-------|
Unholy War -- the groove · x hit · o open hi-hat · g ghost note · r cross-stick · X accent

The fills

8 fills to learn, played 12 times: bars 2, 4, 6, 39, 43, 46 and 6 more.

What the course does

It cuts the song into 42 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 -- D -- 1 exercise, about 20 minutes.
  2. The grooves the song is built on -- K -- 3 exercises, about 28 minutes.
  3. The grooves the song is built on -- B -- 4 exercises, about 31 minutes. Open above.
  4. Through the Chorus -- 2 exercises, about 29 minutes.
  5. Through the Chorus -- 1 exercise, about 13 minutes.
  6. Through the Chorus and Part I -- 3 exercises, about 28 minutes.
  7. Bars 28-40 -- 5 exercises, about 32 minutes.
  8. Through the Chorus 2 and Part K -- 4 exercises, about 19 minutes.
  9. and 10 more sittings after that.
START THE COURSE ↑

Questions

What BPM is Unholy War?

267 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 Unholy War hard to play on drums?

95 out of 100. Hard, and what makes it hard is how many notes a second it asks for. The beat itself is 85 out of 100; the rest of the number is everything around it.

How long is the drum part?

132 bars, about 1:59 at the written tempo. The course breaks it into 42 exercises over 18 sittings, about 24 minutes each.

What do I need on the kit?

crash, ride, 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 Unholy War?

8 fills to learn, played 12 times: bars 2, 4, 6, 39, 43, 46 and 6 more.

READ OFF THE SCORE ITSELF · 132 BARS ANALYSED