Playing “Down with the sickness”
Everybody loves some good old heavy metal and the band Disturbed is part of “the good stuff”. One of their best-known song and concert staple is down with the sickness, usually played at the end of a concert. It was first heard in 1999 and it released as a second single from the album “The Sickness”. Down with the sickness wouldn’t be what it is without the well known scream of the singer David Draiman right at the end of the intro and it also reapers numerous times throughout the song. This iconic sound is believed to have been inspired by a visit to a Chicago Zoo.
Step 1
Down with the sickness has also been used as intro music in sports. Pro football teams (e.g.: Houston Texans, Delaware Blue Hens) have played down with the sickness as their players entered the field. You can also hear this song in the screen adaption of Anne Rice’s book, Queen of the Damned. For the gamers out there, they can play down with the sickness on Rock Band 2 and Guitar Hero 5. It was so prolific that you were able to here it during the end credits of Dawn of the Dead, during the first episode of the eleventh season of the very popular cartoon South Park and you can hear it now as an opening theme song for the show Paranormal Challenge (Travel Channel).
Step 2
A lot of people have tried to reproduce down with the sickness at home and the truth is it’s not that hard. There are some rules you should know before trying to sing any song in general not only down with the sickness. First off you need to choose a segment of the song before you venture on to sing the whole deal. The next thing you need to do is choose an instrument. The easiest instrument you can sing down with the sickness on is a guitar. You also have the option of singing it on drums or bass guitar.
Step 3
After you chose your instrument and segment of the song you intend to reproduce you need to get your hands on the “skeleton” of the song. To be more precise, when talking about a guitar this “skeleton” is called a guitar tab.
Step 4
You can find vast numbers of them all over the internet, you only need to find that perfect one that comes closer to the original down with the sickness. You also need some special software in order to help you read the tab. There are lots of possible programs that even teach you what string to hit next and at what time. If you want to keep it old school you can simply print the tab and learn it by hand.
Step 5
With lots of practice, results will show in no time. Breaking up the song in smaller pieces will allow you to eventually learn the entire song. Practice in this case really makes perfect and you should do plenty of it. After you become better and better at it, you could find other people that learned down with the sickness on other instruments and try to reproduce the entire song together.
