X Tab · X Japan

255 bars at 178 BPM -- fast, and 5:44 of it without a break -- on crash, ride, hi-hat, snare, high tom, mid tom, floor tom and kick.

MetalRock150 BPM and up
TEMPO
178 BPM
TIME
4/4
BARS
255
LENGTH
5:44
DIFFICULTY
88/100
THE BEAT

One bar, and 40% of the song

The beat the song is built on is one bar, played through bars 27-33, 35-41 and 43-49, and 13 more places -- 40% of every bar the kit plays. Learn that one and most of the song is already under your hands.

LOOP · 178 BPM
X TAB · BAR 28
THE BEAT, WRITTEN OUT →
THE FILLS

Where it comes off the beat

21 fills to learn, played 61 times: bars 2, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 and 55 more.

LOOP · 178 BPM
BAR 2 · LANDS ON BAR 3
LOOP · 178 BPM
BARS 4-8 · LANDS ON BAR 9 · PLAYED 5 TIMES
LOOP · 178 BPM
BAR 12 · LANDS ON BAR 13 · PLAYED 5 TIMES
LOOP · 178 BPM
BARS 24-26 · LANDS ON BAR 27 · PLAYED 3 TIMES

17 more fills are written out on the fills page.

EVERY FILL, WRITTEN OUT →
THE SHAPE

How the song is built

255 bars across 15 sections: 176 keep time, 61 are fills and 3 are stops. The longest unbroken stretch of time is bars 13-19.

PART H
CHORUS
CHORUS 2
PART H
CHORUS 3
PART H
CHORUS 5
PART H
OUTRO
OUTRO 2
6 groovesMHAWACAF+1Fill into the next barFill that ends a sectionInto the next partStop / hitRest

Questions

What BPM is X Tab?

178 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 X Tab hard to play on drums?

88 out of 100. Hard, and what makes it hard is how many notes a second it asks for. The beat itself is 70 out of 100; the rest of the number is everything around it.

How long is the drum part?

255 bars, about 5:44 at the written tempo. The course breaks it into 48 exercises over 17 sittings, about 24 minutes each.

What do I need on the kit?

crash, ride, hi-hat, snare, high tom, mid tom, floor tom and kick. That is most of a full kit; the part moves around it rather than sitting in one place.

How many fills are in X Tab?

21 fills to learn, played 61 times: bars 2, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 and 55 more.

READ OFF THE SCORE ITSELF · 255 BARS ANALYSED
MORE BY THIS BAND

Other X Japan drum parts

EVERY X JAPAN CHART →
AT THIS LEVEL

Play something else today

EVERY SONG A-Z →