War Pigs · Black Sabbath

167 bars, 12:13, at 56 BPM: slow enough that every note is exposed. Crash, ride, hi-hat, snare, high tom, mid tom, floor tom, kick and hi-hat foot and nothing else.

MetalRockUnder 90 BPMIntermediate
TEMPO
56 BPM
TIME
4/4
BARS
167
LENGTH
12:13
DIFFICULTY
66/100
THE BEAT

One bar, and 23% of the song

The beat the song is built on is a 2-bar phrase, played through bars 9-25, 27-28 and 91-107, and 1 more place -- 23.3% of every bar the kit plays. This one moves around more than most: the beat is where to start, not the whole job.

LOOP · 56 BPM
WAR PIGS · BARS 9-10
THE BEAT, WRITTEN OUT →
THE FILLS

Where it comes off the beat

15 fills to learn, played 75 times: bars 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 and 69 more.

LOOP · 56 BPM
BARS 1-8 · LANDS ON BAR 9 · PLAYED 8 TIMES
LOOP · 56 BPM
BAR 26 · LANDS ON BAR 27 · PLAYED 2 TIMES
LOOP · 56 BPM
BARS 29-36 · LANDS ON BAR 37 · PLAYED 8 TIMES
LOOP · 56 BPM
BAR 42 · LANDS ON BAR 43 · PLAYED 2 TIMES

11 more fills are written out on the fills page.

EVERY FILL, WRITTEN OUT →
THE SHAPE

How the song is built

167 bars across 7 sections: 82 keep time, 75 are fills and 4 are silent. The longest unbroken stretch of time is bars 9-25.

CHORUS
PART T
PART AD
CHORUS 2
PART AQ
OUTRO
5 groovesHADTAQS7Fill into the next barFill that ends a sectionInto the next partStop / hitRest

Questions

What BPM is War Pigs?

56 BPM, in 4/4, with the time kept in sixteenth notes. Slow enough to hear every mistake, which is why the room lets you sit at the written tempo rather than under it.

Is War Pigs hard to play on drums?

66 out of 100: demanding, mostly on the independence between the hands and the feet. The beat itself is 29 out of 100; the rest of the number is everything around it.

How long is the drum part?

167 bars, about 12:13 at the written tempo. The course breaks it into 37 exercises over 13 sittings, about 25 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 Pigs?

15 fills to learn, played 75 times: bars 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 and 69 more.

READ OFF THE SCORE ITSELF · 167 BARS ANALYSED
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