American Girl · Clarion

150 bars at 200 BPM -- fast, and 3:00 of it without a break -- on crash, hi-hat, snare, high tom, mid tom, floor tom, kick and hi-hat foot.

150 BPM and up
TEMPO
200 BPM
TIME
4/4
BARS
150
LENGTH
3:00
DIFFICULTY
78/100
THE BEAT

One bar, and 17% of the song

The beat the song is built on is one bar, played through bars 13, 21 and 37, and 20 more places -- 17.1% of every bar the kit plays. This one moves around more than most: the beat is where to start, not the whole job.

LOOP · 200 BPM
AMERICAN GIRL · BAR 41
THE BEAT, WRITTEN OUT →
THE FILLS

Where it comes off the beat

2 fills to learn, played 3 times: bars 4, 130 and 140.

LOOP · 200 BPM
BAR 4 · LANDS ON BAR 5 · PLAYED 2 TIMES
LOOP · 200 BPM
BAR 140 · LANDS ON BAR 141
EVERY FILL, WRITTEN OUT →
THE SHAPE

How the song is built

150 bars across 14 sections: 122 keep time, 3 are fills, 1 is a stop and 10 are silent. The longest unbroken stretch of time is bars 22-42.

CHORUS
PART K
PART P
CHORUS 2
PART K
PART T
PART P
PART P
PART O
OUTRO
10 groovesEKPOT+5Fill into the next barFill that ends a sectionInto the next partStop / hitRest

Questions

What BPM is American Girl?

200 BPM, in 4/4, with the time kept in sixteenth notes. At that speed the sixteenth notes are the whole difficulty, so the room will take it down to a quarter of it and climb back.

Is American Girl hard to play on drums?

78 out of 100: demanding, mostly on the independence between the hands and the feet. The beat itself is 40 out of 100; the rest of the number is everything around it.

How long is the drum part?

150 bars, about 3:00 at the written tempo. The course breaks it into 42 exercises over 17 sittings, about 22 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 American Girl?

2 fills to learn, played 3 times: bars 4, 130 and 140.

READ OFF THE SCORE ITSELF · 150 BARS ANALYSED
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