ABOUT THIS DRUM PART

How to play 4 on drums

157 bars at 184 BPM -- fast, and 3:20 of it without a break -- on crash, ride, hi-hat, snare, high tom, mid tom, floor tom and kick.

73 out of 100: demanding, mostly on how fine the subdivision is.

TEMPO: 184 BPM
TIME: 4/4
BARS: 157
LENGTH: 3:20
DIFFICULTY: 73/100

hi-hat through bars 1-7, toms through bars 8-12, snare through bars 13-16, silence through bars 17-20, ride through bars 21-31 and silence through bars 32-37, and 17 more changes after that.

The beat

The beat the song is built on is a 2-bar phrase, played through bars 21-28 and 151-154 -- 9.1% of every bar the kit plays. This one moves around more than most: the beat is where to start, not the whole job.

    21                                               22
    1...........2...........3...........4........... 1...........2...........3...........4...........
CC |x-----------------------------------------------|------------------------------------------------|
RD |------------x-----------x-----------x-----x-----|x-----------x-----x-----x-----------x-----x-----|
SD |------------------------x-----------------------|------------------------x-----------------------|
BD |x-----x-----------------------------x-----x-----|x--x--x--x--x-----------x-----------x-----x-----|

4 -- the groove · x hit · o open hi-hat · g ghost note · r cross-stick · X accent

The fills

18 fills to learn, played 31 times: bars 2, 37, 41, 45, 53, 54 and 25 more.

What the course does

It cuts the song into 63 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.

The grooves the song is built on -- I -- 2 exercises, about 21 minutes.
The grooves the song is built on -- A -- 1 exercise, about 16 minutes.
The grooves the song is built on -- Y -- 4 exercises, about 29 minutes.
Through Part A and Part E -- 4 exercises, about 27 minutes.
Bars 27-32 -- 4 exercises, about 25 minutes.
Through Part O -- 2 exercises, about 30 minutes. Open above.
Through Part O and the Break 5 -- 7 exercises, about 28 minutes.
Through Part Q -- 1 exercise, about 17 minutes.
and 12 more sittings after that.

START THE COURSE ↑

Questions

What BPM is 4?

184 BPM, in 4/4, with the time kept in thirty-second notes. At that speed the thirty-second notes are the whole difficulty, so the room will take it down to a quarter of it and climb back.

Is 4 hard to play on drums?

73 out of 100: demanding, mostly on how fine the subdivision is. The beat itself is 62 out of 100; the rest of the number is everything around it.

How long is the drum part?

157 bars, about 3:20 at the written tempo. The course breaks it into 63 exercises over 20 sittings, about 26 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 4?

18 fills to learn, played 31 times: bars 2, 37, 41, 45, 53, 54 and 25 more.

READ OFF THE SCORE ITSELF · 157 BARS ANALYSED