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American Girl · Tom Petty

EXERCISE 3 OF 34
Groove B -- Part B
45 / 100 BARS COVERED
0 / 34 PASSED · 12 BARS LIT · IN THE PART B, PART F
PART B
PART C
CHORUS
PART C
CHORUS 2
PART E
PART F
PART H
OUTRO
OUTRO 2
8 groovesDCBJF+3Fill into the next barFill that ends a sectionInto the next partStop / hitRest
GROOVE · 9
FILL · 1
LAND · 1
RUN · 2
JOIN · 8
LINK · 6
SECTION · 6
WHOLE SONG · 1
ABOUT THIS DRUM PART

How to play American Girl on drums

100 bars of 4/4 at 120 BPM, about 3:20 of playing, on crash, hi-hat, snare, high tom, mid tom, floor tom, kick and hi-hat foot.

62 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
100
LENGTH
3:20
DIFFICULTY
62/100

kick and crashes through bars 1-2 and hi-hat through bars 3-100.

The beat

The beat the song is built on is one bar, played through bars 25-30, 32-39 and 49-54, and 1 more place -- 23% of every bar the kit plays. This one moves around more than most: the beat is where to start, not the whole job.

    25
    1e+a2e+a3e+a4e+a
HH |x---x---x---o---|
SD |--x---x---x---x-|
BD |x--x--------x---|
American Girl -- the groove · x hit · o open hi-hat · g ghost note · r cross-stick · X accent

The fills

1 fill to learn, played 1 time: bar 72.

What the course does

It cuts the song into 32 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 -- 2 exercises, about 25 minutes.
  2. The grooves the song is built on -- B -- 3 exercises, about 27 minutes. Open above.
  3. Bars 1-28 -- 6 exercises, about 28 minutes.
  4. Bars 25-59 -- 4 exercises, about 29 minutes.
  5. Bars 52-65 -- 3 exercises, about 27 minutes.
  6. Bars 60-75 -- 6 exercises, about 29 minutes.
  7. Bars 73-88 -- 4 exercises, about 30 minutes.
  8. Bars 79-96 -- 5 exercises, about 35 minutes.
  9. and 1 more sittings after that.
START THE COURSE ↑

Questions

What BPM is American Girl?

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 American Girl hard to play on drums?

62 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 34 out of 100; the rest of the number is everything around it.

How long is the drum part?

100 bars, about 3:20 at the written tempo. The course breaks it into 32 exercises over 9 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 American Girl?

1 fill to learn, played 1 time: bar 72.

READ OFF THE SCORE ITSELF · 100 BARS ANALYSED