ABOUT THIS DRUM PART

How to play Amazonia on drums

108 bars of 4/4 at a walking 91 BPM, 4:58 of playing, on crash, ride, hi-hat, snare, high tom, mid tom, floor tom, kick and hi-hat foot.

84 out of 100. Hard, and what makes it hard is how much of it falls off the beat.

TEMPO: 91 BPM
TIME: 4/4
BARS: 108
LENGTH: 4:58
DIFFICULTY: 84/100

ride through bars 1-16, hi-hat through bars 17-44, ride through bars 45-61, snare through bars 62-64, hi-hat through bars 65-69 and snare through bars 70-71, and 5 more changes after that.

The beat

The beat the song is built on is a 2-bar phrase, played through bars 1-3, 5-7 and 9-11, and 10 more places -- 33% of every bar the kit plays. That is the spine of it; everything else is what happens around it.

    1                                2
    1.......2.......3.......4....... 1.......2.......3.......4.......
CC |x-------------------------------|--------------------------------|
RD |----x-g-x-g-x-g-x-g-x-g-x-g-xxxx|x-g-x-g-x-g-x-g-x-g-x-g-x-g-x-g-|
SD |--------x---------------x-------|--------x---------------x-------|
BD |x---x---------x-----x-------xxxx|x---x---------x-----x-----------|

Amazonia -- the groove · x hit · o open hi-hat · g ghost note · r cross-stick · X accent

The fills

12 fills to learn, played 28 times: bars 8, 16, 20, 24, 26, 28 and 22 more.

What the course does

It cuts the song into 36 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.

The grooves the song is built on -- A -- 3 exercises, about 27 minutes.
The grooves the song is built on -- G -- 5 exercises, about 31 minutes.
The grooves the song is built on -- E -- 3 exercises, about 23 minutes.
Through the Chorus -- 2 exercises, about 26 minutes.
Bars 13-32 -- 7 exercises, about 33 minutes.
Bars 29-60 -- 5 exercises, about 29 minutes.
Through the Chorus 2 and Part O -- 4 exercises, about 26 minutes. Open above.
Through Part O and Part N -- 6 exercises, about 30 minutes.
and 3 more sittings after that.

START THE COURSE ↑

Questions

What BPM is Amazonia?

91 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 Amazonia hard to play on drums?

84 out of 100. Hard, and what makes it hard is how much of it falls off the beat. The beat itself is 75 out of 100; the rest of the number is everything around it.

How long is the drum part?

108 bars, about 4:58 at the written tempo. The course breaks it into 36 exercises over 11 sittings, about 26 minutes each.

What do I need on the kit?

crash, ride, 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 Amazonia?

12 fills to learn, played 28 times: bars 8, 16, 20, 24, 26, 28 and 22 more.

READ OFF THE SCORE ITSELF · 108 BARS ANALYSED