← SONGS

50 Ways To Leave Your Lover · Paul Simon

50 Ways To Leave Your Lover · Paul Simon
PERFORM →
EXERCISE 1 OF 11
Groove A -- Chorus (a two-bar phrase)
0 / 82 BARS COVERED
0 / 11 PASSED · 50 BARS LIT · IN THE CHORUS, CHORUS 2, OUTRO 2
CHORUS
PART D
CHORUS 2
OUTRO
OUTRO 2
2 groovesADFill into the next barFill that ends a sectionInto the next partStop / hitRest
GROOVE · 3
RUN · 1
JOIN · 2
LINK · 2
SECTION · 2
WHOLE SONG · 1
ABOUT THIS DRUM PART

How to play 50 Ways To Leave Your Lover on drums

82 bars of 4/4 at a walking 105 BPM, 3:07 of playing, on hi-hat, snare, high tom, floor tom, kick and hi-hat foot.

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

TEMPO
105 BPM
TIME
4/4
BARS
82
LENGTH
3:07
DIFFICULTY
70/100

The time is kept on the hi-hat the whole way through.

The beat

The beat the song is built on is a 2-bar phrase, played through bars 1-21, 38-56 and 73-82 -- 61% of every bar the kit plays. Learn that one and the song is very nearly finished.

    1                                                                2
    1...............2...............3...............4............... 1...............2...............3...............4...............
HH |----x-----------x-------x---------------------------------------|----x-----------x-------x---------------------------------------|
SD |--------g-----------g---------------------------x-g-g---g---g---|--------g-----------g-----------------------------------xggggggg|
T1 |--------------------------------g-------------------------------|--------------------------------g-------------------------------|
FT |----------------------------------------------------------------|------------------------------------------------x---------------|
BD |x---------------------------g---x-------------------------------|x---------------------------g---x-------------------------------|
HF |x-----------x---------------------------------------------------|x-----------x---------------------------------------------------|
50 Ways To Leave Your Lover -- the groove · x hit · o open hi-hat · g ghost note · r cross-stick · X accent

The fills

There are no fills to speak of: the part holds one beat the whole way through.

What the course does

It cuts the song into 10 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 -- A -- 2 exercises, about 22 minutes.
  2. Through the Chorus -- 2 exercises, about 21 minutes.
  3. Through the Chorus and Part D -- 4 exercises, about 27 minutes.
  4. The whole song -- 3 exercises, about 20 minutes.
START THE COURSE ↑

Questions

What BPM is 50 Ways To Leave Your Lover?

105 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 50 Ways To Leave Your Lover hard to play on drums?

70 out of 100: demanding, mostly on the independence between the hands and the feet. The beat itself is 63 out of 100; the rest of the number is everything around it.

How long is the drum part?

82 bars, about 3:07 at the written tempo. The course breaks it into 10 exercises over 4 sittings, about 23 minutes each.

What do I need on the kit?

hi-hat, snare, high 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.

READ OFF THE SCORE ITSELF · 82 BARS ANALYSED