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A Million Miles Away · Rory Gallagher

EXERCISE 32 OF 50
Fill at bar 111 (a small one)
207 / 230 BARS COVERED
0 / 50 PASSED · 1 BAR LIT · IN THE CHORUS 2
CHORUS
PART I
CHORUS 2
OUTRO
OUTRO 2
3 groovesBIS1Fill into the next barFill that ends a sectionInto the next partStop / hitRest
GROOVE · 3
FILL · 19
LAND · 19
RUN · 2
JOIN · 2
LINK · 2
SECTION · 2
WHOLE SONG · 1
ABOUT THIS DRUM PART

How to play A Million Miles Away on drums

230 bars of 4/4 at a walking 90 BPM, 10:13 of playing, on crash, snare, high tom, mid tom, floor tom, kick and hi-hat foot.

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

TEMPO
90 BPM
TIME
4/4
BARS
230
LENGTH
10:13
DIFFICULTY
49/100

silence through bars 1-7 and toms through bars 8-230.

The beat

The beat the song is built on is one bar, played through bars 8, 10 and 12, and 48 more places -- 49.8% of every bar the kit plays. Learn that one and most of the song is already under your hands.

    8
    1e+a2e+a3e+a4e+a
CC |x---------------|
SD |--------x-------|
T1 |x-------------x-|
T2 |--------x-------|
BD |x---x-------x---|
HF |----x-x---------|
A Million Miles Away -- the groove · x hit · o open hi-hat · g ghost note · r cross-stick · X accent

The fills

19 fills to learn, played 40 times: bars 11, 25, 29, 33, 34, 35 and 34 more.

What the course does

It cuts the song into 30 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, I -- 4 exercises, about 27 minutes.
  2. Through the Chorus and Part I -- 5 exercises, about 18 minutes.
  3. Through the Chorus -- 6 exercises, about 31 minutes.
  4. Bars 8-72 -- 8 exercises, about 31 minutes.
  5. Through Part I and the Chorus 2 -- 8 exercises, about 27 minutes.
  6. Bars 111-192 -- 7 exercises, about 27 minutes. Open above.
  7. The whole song -- 6 exercises, about 27 minutes.
  8. Through the Outro 2 -- 6 exercises, about 18 minutes.
START THE COURSE ↑

Questions

What BPM is A Million Miles Away?

90 BPM, in 4/4, with the time kept in sixteenth 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 A Million Miles Away hard to play on drums?

49 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 28 out of 100; the rest of the number is everything around it.

How long is the drum part?

230 bars, about 10:13 at the written tempo. The course breaks it into 30 exercises over 8 sittings, about 26 minutes each.

What do I need on the kit?

crash, snare, high tom, 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 A Million Miles Away?

19 fills to learn, played 40 times: bars 11, 25, 29, 33, 34, 35 and 34 more.

READ OFF THE SCORE ITSELF · 230 BARS ANALYSED