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Allentown · Billy Joel

EXERCISE 5 OF 34
Groove E
70 / 104 BARS COVERED
0 / 34 PASSED · 5 BARS LIT · IN THE CHORUS, CHORUS 2, CHORUS 4
CHORUS
PART C
CHORUS 2
PART M
CHORUS 4
OUTRO
5 groovesDMJCS1Fill into the next barFill that ends a sectionInto the next partStop / hitRest
GROOVE · 6
FILL · 6
LAND · 6
RUN · 2
JOIN · 7
LINK · 2
SECTION · 4
WHOLE SONG · 1
ABOUT THIS DRUM PART

How to play Allentown on drums

104 bars of 4/4 at 120 BPM, about 3:26 of playing, on crash, hi-hat, snare, high tom, mid tom, floor tom, kick and hi-hat foot.

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

TEMPO
120 BPM
TIME
4/4
BARS
104
LENGTH
3:26
DIFFICULTY
51/100

hi-hat through bars 3-104.

The beat

The beat the song is built on is one bar, played through bars 4-6, 9-25 and 27, and 9 more places -- 57.3% of every bar the kit plays. Learn that one and most of the song is already under your hands.

    4
    1e+a2e+a3e+a4e+a
HH |x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-|
SD |----x-------x---|
BD |x-------x-x-----|
Allentown -- the groove · x hit · o open hi-hat · g ghost note · r cross-stick · X accent

The fills

6 fills to learn, played 14 times: bars 2, 28, 31, 45, 60, 65 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 -- D, C -- 4 exercises, about 27 minutes.
  2. Through the Chorus and Part C -- 5 exercises, about 28 minutes. Open above.
  3. Through Part C and the Chorus 2 -- 4 exercises, about 16 minutes.
  4. Bars 54-61 -- 3 exercises, about 26 minutes.
  5. Bars 64-97 -- 7 exercises, about 36 minutes.
  6. Bars 62-99 -- 6 exercises, about 28 minutes.
  7. The whole song -- 5 exercises, about 25 minutes.
START THE COURSE ↑

Questions

What BPM is Allentown?

120 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 Allentown hard to play on drums?

51 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 31 out of 100; the rest of the number is everything around it.

How long is the drum part?

104 bars, about 3:26 at the written tempo. The course breaks it into 27 exercises over 7 sittings, about 27 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 Allentown?

6 fills to learn, played 14 times: bars 2, 28, 31, 45, 60, 65 and 8 more.

READ OFF THE SCORE ITSELF · 104 BARS ANALYSED