← SONGS

21st Century Breakdown · Green Day

EXERCISE 6 OF 56
Fill at bar 20 and 44 (a small one)
81 / 161 BARS COVERED
0 / 56 PASSED · 2 BARS LIT · IN THE PART D
PART D
PART D
PART N
CHORUS
OUTRO 2
9 groovesRNDFZ+4Fill into the next barFill that ends a sectionInto the next partStop / hitRest
GROOVE · 12
FILL · 11
LAND · 11
RUN · 2
JOIN · 8
LINK · 6
SECTION · 5
WHOLE SONG · 1
ABOUT THIS DRUM PART

How to play 21st Century Breakdown on drums

161 bars of 4/4 at 115 BPM, about 5:35 of playing, on crash, ride, hi-hat, snare, high tom, mid tom, floor tom and kick.

67 out of 100: demanding, mostly on the independence between the hands and the feet.

TEMPO
115 BPM
TIME
4/4
BARS
161
LENGTH
5:35
DIFFICULTY
67/100

silence through bars 1-8, toms through bars 9-16, ride through bars 17-32, snare through bars 33-40, ride through bars 41-56 and snare through bars 57-64, and 6 more changes after that.

The beat

The beat the song is built on is one bar, played through bars 89-90, 93 and 95, and 10 more places -- 26.8% of every bar the kit plays. That is the spine of it; everything else is what happens around it.

    89
    1.....2.....3.....4.....
CC |x-----------------------|
HH |------o-----o-----o-----|
SD |------x--x--------x--x--|
BD |x--x--------x--x--------|
21st Century Breakdown -- the groove · x hit · o open hi-hat · g ghost note · r cross-stick · X accent

The fills

11 fills to learn, played 19 times: bars 16, 20, 28, 32, 40, 44 and 13 more.

What the course does

It cuts the song into 44 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.

  1. The grooves the song is built on -- R -- 3 exercises, about 19 minutes.
  2. The grooves the song is built on -- N, D -- 2 exercises, about 28 minutes.
  3. Through Part B and Part D -- 8 exercises, about 35 minutes. Open above.
  4. Through Part F and Part D -- 4 exercises, about 24 minutes.
  5. Bars 28-33 -- 5 exercises, about 27 minutes.
  6. Bars 29-53 -- 7 exercises, about 29 minutes.
  7. Bars 51-68 -- 3 exercises, about 15 minutes.
  8. Through Part N -- 3 exercises, about 23 minutes.
  9. and 6 more sittings after that.
START THE COURSE ↑

Questions

What BPM is 21st Century Breakdown?

115 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 21st Century Breakdown hard to play on drums?

67 out of 100: demanding, mostly on the independence between the hands and the feet. The beat itself is 38 out of 100; the rest of the number is everything around it.

How long is the drum part?

161 bars, about 5:35 at the written tempo. The course breaks it into 44 exercises over 14 sittings, about 25 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 21st Century Breakdown?

11 fills to learn, played 19 times: bars 16, 20, 28, 32, 40, 44 and 13 more.

READ OFF THE SCORE ITSELF · 161 BARS ANALYSED