← SONGS

50 Special · Lunapop

50 Special · Lunapop
EXERCISE 3 OF 33
Groove I -- Part I (a two-bar phrase)
53 / 136 BARS COVERED
0 / 33 PASSED · 32 BARS LIT · IN THE PART I
CHORUS
PART I
PART K
CHORUS 2
PART I
OUTRO 2
8 groovesBIKED+3Fill into the next barFill that ends a sectionInto the next partStop / hitRest
GROOVE · 5
FILL · 5
LAND · 5
RUN · 2
JOIN · 8
LINK · 2
SECTION · 5
WHOLE SONG · 1
ABOUT THIS DRUM PART

How to play 50 Special on drums

136 bars at 160 BPM -- fast, and 3:23 of it without a break -- on crash, ride, hi-hat, snare, mid tom, floor tom, kick and hi-hat foot.

60 out of 100, a step up from a first song, and the work is in the independence between the hands and the feet.

TEMPO
160 BPM
TIME
4/4
BARS
136
LENGTH
3:23
DIFFICULTY
60/100

ride through bars 2-18, silence through bars 19-21, hi-hat through bars 22-28, toms through bars 29-30, hi-hat through bars 31-46 and ride through bars 47-52, and 9 more changes after that.

The beat

The beat the song is built on is one bar, played through bars 2-17, 57-71 and 112-133 -- 41.1% of every bar the kit plays. Learn that one and most of the song is already under your hands.

    3
    1e+a2e+a3e+a4e+a
RD |x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-|
SD |----x-------x---|
BD |x-------x-x---x-|
50 Special -- the groove · x hit · o open hi-hat · g ghost note · r cross-stick · X accent

The fills

5 fills to learn, played 14 times: bars 28, 29, 30, 53, 54, 55 and 8 more.

What the course does

It cuts the song into 27 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 -- B -- 2 exercises, about 19 minutes.
  2. The grooves the song is built on -- I -- 3 exercises, about 25 minutes. Open above.
  3. Through Part D and Part E -- 3 exercises, about 29 minutes.
  4. Bars 24-46 -- 5 exercises, about 22 minutes.
  5. Bars 43-57 -- 5 exercises, about 31 minutes.
  6. Bars 47-73 -- 6 exercises, about 27 minutes.
  7. Bars 81-136 -- 7 exercises, about 29 minutes.
  8. The whole song -- 2 exercises, about 14 minutes.
START THE COURSE ↑

Questions

What BPM is 50 Special?

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

Is 50 Special hard to play on drums?

60 out of 100, a step up from a first song, and the work is in the independence between the hands and the feet. The beat itself is 45 out of 100; the rest of the number is everything around it.

How long is the drum part?

136 bars, about 3:23 at the written tempo. The course breaks it into 27 exercises over 8 sittings, about 25 minutes each.

What do I need on the kit?

crash, ride, hi-hat, snare, mid tom, floor tom, kick and hi-hat foot. That is most of a full kit; the part moves around it rather than sitting in one place.

How many fills are in 50 Special?

5 fills to learn, played 14 times: bars 28, 29, 30, 53, 54, 55 and 8 more.

READ OFF THE SCORE ITSELF · 136 BARS ANALYSED