ABOUT THIS DRUM PART

How to play What The Dead Men Say on drums

126 bars of 4/4 at a walking 105 BPM, 4:48 of playing, on crash, ride, hi-hat, snare, high tom, mid tom, floor tom, kick and hi-hat foot.

82 out of 100. Hard, and what makes it hard is how much of it falls off the beat.

TEMPO: 105 BPM
TIME: 4/4
BARS: 126
LENGTH: 4:48
DIFFICULTY: 82/100

kick and crashes through bars 3-6, snare through bars 7-10, ride through bars 11-14, hi-hat through bars 15-26, ride through bars 27-34 and snare through bars 35-40, and 12 more changes after that.

The beat

The beat the song is built on is one bar, played through bars 28-29, 32 and 52-53, and 3 more places -- 8.1% of every bar the kit plays. This one moves around more than most: the beat is where to start, not the whole job.

    28
    1...............2...............3...............4...............
CC |x---------------x-------------------------------x---------------|
RD |--------x---------------x-------x-----------------------x-------|
HH |------------------------------------o---------------------------|
SD |----------------x-------------------------------x---------------|
BD |x-----------x-----------x---------------x---------------x-------|
HF |----------------------------------------x-----------------------|

What The Dead Men Say -- the groove · x hit · o open hi-hat · g ghost note · r cross-stick · X accent

The fills

31 fills to learn, played 62 times: bars 6, 10, 14, 16, 18, 20 and 56 more.

What the course does

It cuts the song into 70 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.

The grooves the song is built on -- T -- 3 exercises, about 25 minutes.
The grooves the song is built on -- D -- 5 exercises, about 31 minutes.
The grooves the song is built on -- AJ -- 1 exercise, about 17 minutes.
Through Part D and Part G -- 4 exercises, about 34 minutes. Open above.
Bars 9-15 -- 2 exercises, about 27 minutes.
Through Part G and Part J -- 6 exercises, about 24 minutes.
Through Part J -- 2 exercises, about 9 minutes.
Through Part J and Part N -- 3 exercises, about 32 minutes.
and 15 more sittings after that.

START THE COURSE ↑

Questions

What BPM is What The Dead Men Say?

105 BPM, in 4/4, with the time kept in thirty-second notes. The room plays it at any tempo from a quarter of that up to the written one, against the record where the record can follow.

Is What The Dead Men Say hard to play on drums?

82 out of 100. Hard, and what makes it hard is how much of it falls off the beat. The beat itself is 61 out of 100; the rest of the number is everything around it.

How long is the drum part?

126 bars, about 4:48 at the written tempo. The course breaks it into 70 exercises over 23 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 What The Dead Men Say?

31 fills to learn, played 62 times: bars 6, 10, 14, 16, 18, 20 and 56 more.

READ OFF THE SCORE ITSELF · 126 BARS ANALYSED