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War · Meshuggah

EXERCISE 21 OF 50
Join Chorus to Part M (bars 25-27)
107 / 147 BARS COVERED
0 / 50 PASSED · 3 BARS LIT · IN THE CHORUS, PART M
PART G
CHORUS
PART M
CHORUS 2
CHORUS 3
PART G
PART P
CHORUS 4
PART M
PART G
OUTRO
BREAK 6
10 groovesKGMPS18+5Fill into the next barFill that ends a sectionInto the next partStop / hitRest
GROOVE · 6
FILL · 11
LAND · 11
RUN · 4
JOIN · 9
LINK · 4
SECTION · 4
WHOLE SONG · 1
ABOUT THIS DRUM PART

How to play War on drums

147 bars at 243 BPM -- fast, and 2:37 of it without a break -- on crash, ride, hi-hat, snare, high tom, mid tom, floor tom, kick and hi-hat foot.

79 out of 100: demanding, mostly on how many notes a second it asks for.

TEMPO
243 BPM
TIME
4/4
BARS
147
LENGTH
2:37
DIFFICULTY
79/100

toms through bars 1-3, kick and crashes through bars 4-5, snare through bars 6-18, hi-hat through bars 19-26, ride through bars 27-34 and hi-hat through bars 35-42, and 9 more changes after that.

The beat

The beat the song is built on is one bar, played through bars 19-25, 35-41 and 47-61, and 2 more places -- 32.3% of every bar the kit plays. That is the spine of it; everything else is what happens around it.

    20
    1e+a2e+a3e+a4e+a
HH |--o---o---o---o-|
SD |--x---x---x---x-|
BD |x---x---x---x---|
War -- the groove · x hit · o open hi-hat · g ghost note · r cross-stick · X accent

The fills

11 fills to learn, played 19 times: bars 1, 2, 6, 14, 26, 34 and 13 more.

What the course does

It cuts the song into 38 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 -- K -- 1 exercise, about 14 minutes.
  2. The grooves the song is built on -- G -- 6 exercises, about 35 minutes.
  3. The grooves the song is built on -- M -- 4 exercises, about 30 minutes.
  4. Bars 1-19 -- 5 exercises, about 19 minutes.
  5. Through the Chorus and Part M -- 4 exercises, about 27 minutes.
  6. Bars 25-71 -- 6 exercises, about 30 minutes. Open above.
  7. Through Part P -- 6 exercises, about 30 minutes.
  8. Through Part P and the Chorus 4 -- 5 exercises, about 27 minutes.
  9. and 2 more sittings after that.
START THE COURSE ↑

Questions

What BPM is War?

243 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 War hard to play on drums?

79 out of 100: demanding, mostly on how many notes a second it asks for. The beat itself is 48 out of 100; the rest of the number is everything around it.

How long is the drum part?

147 bars, about 2:37 at the written tempo. The course breaks it into 38 exercises over 10 sittings, about 27 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 War?

11 fills to learn, played 19 times: bars 1, 2, 6, 14, 26, 34 and 13 more.

READ OFF THE SCORE ITSELF · 147 BARS ANALYSED