The Mars Volta’s Bedlam in Goliath has some excellent drumming. Thomas Pridgen lays it down on this album. Every track has some really great licks and grooves, but I was especially blown away by the drum fills from the beginning of “Wax Simulacra.”
I searched the internet for a long time to see if anyone had transcribed the fills and I couldn’t find one. Either there were drum covers on YouTube that were adding their own fills on top of the original or they were only close to playing the actual fills but it wasn’t entirely accurate.
So after all of my searching I decided I needed to figure it out, so I slowed it down and transcribed it! I think I’m pretty accurate on the rhythms and the orchestration of the fills.
This transcription is definitely a good exercise for moving around the kit, playing linear patterns, playing at a fast tempo, and inverted paradiddles/alternating between inverts and singles. Plus there is some pretty awesome stuff in here to keep in your arsenal.
(Sorry about that big gap, I couldn’t export the image without the rest of the page.)
Here is a link to the PDF
Enjoy! Feel free to drop a line if you have any questions.