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Wake Up Dead · Megadeth

EXERCISE 17 OF 68
Groove H -- Part H (a two-bar phrase)
57 / 133 BARS COVERED
0 / 68 PASSED · 8 BARS LIT · IN THE PART H, PART M
CHORUS
PART B
PART H
PART M
CHORUS 2
PART R
PART AC
10 groovesCMRACB+5Fill into the next barFill that ends a sectionInto the next partStop / hitRest
GROOVE · 15
FILL · 13
LAND · 13
RUN · 3
JOIN · 10
LINK · 4
SECTION · 9
WHOLE SONG · 1
ABOUT THIS DRUM PART

How to play Wake Up Dead on drums

133 bars at 161 BPM -- fast, and 3:23 of it without a break -- on crash, ride, hi-hat, snare, high tom, mid tom, floor tom, kick and hi-hat foot.

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

TEMPO
161 BPM
TIME
4/4
BARS
133
LENGTH
3:23
DIFFICULTY
87/100

snare through bar 1, hi-hat through bars 2-40, toms through bars 41-42, hi-hat through bars 43-79, ride through bars 80-94 and snare through bars 95-96, and 5 more changes after that.

The beat

The beat the song is built on is one bar, played through bars 3-9, 11 and 13, and 6 more places -- 13.1% of every bar the kit plays. This one moves around more than most: the beat is where to start, not the whole job.

    3
    1e+a2e+a3e+a4e+a
HH |X-x-X-X-x-x-x-x-|
SD |-g--x----g--x--g|
BD |x-gx--x---xx--x-|
Wake Up Dead -- the groove · x hit · o open hi-hat · g ghost note · r cross-stick · X accent

The fills

13 fills to learn, played 27 times: bars 1, 16, 17, 22, 23, 33 and 21 more.

What the course does

It cuts the song into 54 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 -- 1 exercise, about 20 minutes.
  2. The grooves the song is built on -- AC -- 4 exercises, about 28 minutes.
  3. The grooves the song is built on -- B -- 4 exercises, about 30 minutes.
  4. Through the Chorus -- 3 exercises, about 29 minutes.
  5. Through the Chorus and Part B -- 4 exercises, about 18 minutes.
  6. Through Part B and Part H -- 5 exercises, about 32 minutes. Open above.
  7. Through Part H and Part M -- 4 exercises, about 24 minutes.
  8. Through Part H and Part M -- 2 exercises, about 21 minutes.
  9. and 11 more sittings after that.
START THE COURSE ↑

Questions

What BPM is Wake Up Dead?

161 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 Wake Up Dead hard to play on drums?

87 out of 100. Hard, and what makes it hard is the independence between the hands and the feet. The beat itself is 83 out of 100; the rest of the number is everything around it.

How long is the drum part?

133 bars, about 3:23 at the written tempo. The course breaks it into 54 exercises over 19 sittings, about 26 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 Wake Up Dead?

13 fills to learn, played 27 times: bars 1, 16, 17, 22, 23, 33 and 21 more.

READ OFF THE SCORE ITSELF · 133 BARS ANALYSED