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A Whiter Shade Of Pale · Procol Harum

A Whiter Shade Of Pale · Procol Harum
EXERCISE 16 OF 21
Fill at bar 80 (a small one)
81 / 85 BARS COVERED
0 / 21 PASSED · 1 BAR LIT · IN THE OUTRO
OUTRO
1 grooveAFill into the next barFill that ends a sectionInto the next partStop / hitRest
GROOVE · 4
FILL · 7
LAND · 7
RUN · 1
SECTION · 1
WHOLE SONG · 1
ABOUT THIS DRUM PART

How to play A Whiter Shade Of Pale on drums

85 bars, 4:32, at 75 BPM: slow enough that every note is exposed. Crash, ride, hi-hat, snare, high tom, mid tom, floor tom and kick and nothing else.

43 out of 100 -- a fair first song -- with the independence between the hands and the feet the part that decides it.

TEMPO
75 BPM
TIME
4/4
BARS
85
LENGTH
4:32
DIFFICULTY
43/100

ride through bars 1-82 and kick and crashes through bars 83-85.

The beat

The beat the song is built on is one bar, played through bars 1, 3 and 5-7, and 29 more places -- 58.8% of every bar the kit plays. Learn that one and most of the song is already under your hands.

    1
    1e+a2e+a3e+a4e+a
CC |x---------------|
RD |--x-x-x-x-x-x-x-|
SD |----x-------x---|
BD |x-----x-x-------|
A Whiter Shade Of Pale -- the groove · x hit · o open hi-hat · g ghost note · r cross-stick · X accent

The fills

7 fills to learn, played 16 times: bars 8, 14, 24, 28, 32, 40 and 10 more.

What the course does

It cuts the song into 13 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, D -- 4 exercises, about 27 minutes.
  2. Through the Outro -- 4 exercises, about 23 minutes.
  3. Through the Outro -- 7 exercises, about 30 minutes.
  4. The whole song -- 6 exercises, about 23 minutes. Open above.
START THE COURSE ↑

Questions

What BPM is A Whiter Shade Of Pale?

75 BPM, in 4/4, with the time kept in sixteenth notes. Slow enough to hear every mistake, which is why the room lets you sit at the written tempo rather than under it.

Is A Whiter Shade Of Pale hard to play on drums?

43 out of 100 -- a fair first song -- with the independence between the hands and the feet the part that decides it. The beat itself is 23 out of 100; the rest of the number is everything around it.

How long is the drum part?

85 bars, about 4:32 at the written tempo. The course breaks it into 13 exercises over 4 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 A Whiter Shade Of Pale?

7 fills to learn, played 16 times: bars 8, 14, 24, 28, 32, 40 and 10 more.

READ OFF THE SCORE ITSELF · 85 BARS ANALYSED