YOASOBI - あの夢をなぞって Practice Notes
Sharing my practice notes for [YOASOBI]〈あの夢をなぞって〉!
I love this song, but it's very fast—my hands were sore after practicing!
The BPM is 180, so warm up your hands before playing along.
Jumping in without warming up makes it easy to burn out quickly.
For my warm-up I practiced switching between eighth notes and sixteenth notes.
There are many “eighth + sixteenth” fill patterns in the song,
so warming up with similar phrases helps get used to those rhythm changes.
Stickings are important here; I used:R R R L R L | R R R L R L
The song also features a lot of “missing two” syncopation, so I ran the phrase below first
to avoid locking up mid-song when a missing-two hit appears.
The intro rhythm isn't too hard; the main thing is coordinating the bass drum with Hi-Hat openings.
When you hit the bass drum, slightly open the Hi-Hat with your left foot, then immediately close it,
so the opening is short and crisp. Don't open too much or let it ring too long.
Try the practice method below to get comfortable opening the Hi-Hat on the offbeat.
Most Hi-Hat openings in this song fall on offbeats, so drilling the motion first makes playing along easier.
There's another section that needs special attention.
Usually you hit the CYM on beat one, but this song places a CYM on the second half of beat four.
That can be hard to adjust to at first, so isolate those two bars and practice them separately.
Moving on, you'll hit the first tricky fill.
This inserts sixteenth notes among eighths and includes TOM shifts.
Slow the tempo to lock in note placement and shifting motion, then gradually increase speed.
In the A section (verse), if you practice Down Up techniques regularly, this part is easier.
Since the song is BPM 180, playing everything single-stroke will fatigue your hands fast.
Try practicing the pattern below up to BPM 190, then return to the original tempo—you'll usually find it much easier.
The second phrase of the verse is much friendlier XD
Next you'll encounter a two-bar fill.
It looks complex but is mainly eighth notes.
Memorize each hit and shift sequence, and you'll catch up.
By bar 57 it's a single-stroke speed test. Yikes~
Then it immediately shifts to quarter-note feel—feels like a quick break XD
Next are the small fills in bars 73–74.
Then practice the fill in bars 87–88.
Next is the fill in bars 101–102.
Keep practicing and you'll reach the song's boss section—a four-bar continuous fill!
Break this passage into parts: master the first half, then the second.
Once you can play both halves cleanly, connect them and repeat until the full four bars flow smoothly.
In the chorus there's a three-beat consecutive missing-two rhythm.
The challenge is shifting between CYM and snare on every beat.
Make the shifting motion solid before speeding up, or you'll get hands stuck.
If the earlier sections are under control, the rest of the song is easier to get through.
When I practiced this tune I drilled paradiddles and aimed to get single-stroke speed up to about BPM 190.
I even practiced the whole song at BPM 190.
After I could play it through at that tempo, I returned to BPM 180 and clearly felt:
“It suddenly felt easier to play!”
As the saying goes:
“You won't突破 your limits without pushing yourself a little.”
I hope these notes help anyone working on YOASOBI〈あの夢をなぞって〉,
and good luck getting this tune under your fingers! 🥁