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Airbag · Radiohead

EXERCISE 3 OF 20
Groove D
55 / 97 BARS COVERED
0 / 20 PASSED · 2 BARS LIT · IN THE CHORUS
COUNT-IN
CHORUS
PART H
CHORUS 2
OUTRO
OUTRO 2
5 groovesGFHS1BFill into the next barFill that ends a sectionInto the next partStop / hitRest
GROOVE · 7
FILL · 2
LAND · 2
RUN · 1
JOIN · 2
LINK · 1
SECTION · 4
WHOLE SONG · 1
ABOUT THIS DRUM PART

How to play Airbag on drums

97 bars of 4/4 at a walking 86 BPM, 4:28 of playing, on crash, hi-hat, snare, high tom, mid tom, floor tom, kick and hi-hat foot.

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

TEMPO
86 BPM
TIME
4/4
BARS
97
LENGTH
4:28
DIFFICULTY
67/100

silence through bars 1-5 and hi-hat through bars 6-97.

The beat

The beat the song is built on is one bar, played through bars 10-15, 17 and 19-20, and 15 more places -- 37.1% of every bar the kit plays. Learn that one and most of the song is already under your hands.

    10
    1e+a2e+a3e+a4e+a
HH |x-x-x-x-x-x-x-o-|
SD |----x-x-----x-x-|
BD |x--x---x-x-x----|
Airbag -- the groove · x hit · o open hi-hat · g ghost note · r cross-stick · X accent

The fills

2 fills to learn, played 2 times: bars 6 and 49.

What the course does

It cuts the song into 17 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 -- G, F -- 2 exercises, about 29 minutes.
  2. Through the Chorus -- 3 exercises, about 22 minutes. Open above.
  3. Through the Chorus -- 2 exercises, about 19 minutes.
  4. Through the Chorus and Part H -- 4 exercises, about 29 minutes.
  5. Through the Chorus 2 -- 3 exercises, about 23 minutes.
  6. Bars 76-89 -- 4 exercises, about 29 minutes.
  7. The whole song -- 2 exercises, about 14 minutes.
START THE COURSE ↑

Questions

What BPM is Airbag?

86 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 Airbag hard to play on drums?

67 out of 100: demanding, mostly on the independence between the hands and the feet. The beat itself is 50 out of 100; the rest of the number is everything around it.

How long is the drum part?

97 bars, about 4:28 at the written tempo. The course breaks it into 17 exercises over 7 sittings, about 24 minutes each.

What do I need on the kit?

crash, hi-hat, 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 Airbag?

2 fills to learn, played 2 times: bars 6 and 49.

READ OFF THE SCORE ITSELF · 97 BARS ANALYSED