← SONGS

War Pigs · Black Sabbath

EXERCISE 32 OF 53
8-bar fill at bar 111
127 / 167 BARS COVERED
0 / 53 PASSED · 8 BARS LIT · IN THE CHORUS 2
CHORUS
PART T
PART AD
CHORUS 2
PART AQ
OUTRO
5 groovesHADTAQS7Fill into the next barFill that ends a sectionInto the next partStop / hitRest
GROOVE · 6
FILL · 15
LAND · 15
RUN · 1
JOIN · 6
LINK · 5
SECTION · 4
WHOLE SONG · 1
ABOUT THIS DRUM PART

How to play War Pigs on drums

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.

66 out of 100: demanding, mostly on the independence between the hands and the feet.

TEMPO
56 BPM
TIME
4/4
BARS
167
LENGTH
12:13
DIFFICULTY
66/100

ride through bars 1-8, hi-hat through bars 9-67, ride through bars 68-90, hi-hat through bars 91-111, ride through bars 112-118 and kick and crashes through bars 119-126, and 4 more changes after that.

The beat

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.

    9                10
    1e+a2e+a3e+a4e+a 1e+a2e+a3e+a4e+a
CC |xx--------------|----------------|
HH |----x-x-x-x-x-x-|x-x-x-x-xox-x-x-|
SD |----------------|---------------g|
BD |xx--------------|----------------|
HF |--x-x-x-x-x-x-x-|x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-|
War Pigs -- the groove · x hit · o open hi-hat · g ghost note · r cross-stick · X accent

The fills

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

What the course does

It cuts the song into 37 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 -- H -- 4 exercises, about 29 minutes.
  2. The grooves the song is built on -- AD, S -- 2 exercises, about 28 minutes.
  3. Through the Chorus -- 4 exercises, about 21 minutes.
  4. Through the Chorus and Part T -- 6 exercises, about 35 minutes.
  5. Through Part T and Part AD -- 5 exercises, about 29 minutes.
  6. Through Part T and Part AD -- 6 exercises, about 30 minutes.
  7. Bars 71-121 -- 4 exercises, about 26 minutes.
  8. Through the Chorus 2 and Part AQ -- 4 exercises, about 24 minutes. Open above.
  9. and 5 more sittings after that.
START THE COURSE ↑

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