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American Idiot · Green Day

EXERCISE 1 OF 52
Groove C -- Part C
0 / 134 BARS COVERED
0 / 52 PASSED · 24 BARS LIT
PART E
PART I
CHORUS
PART I
PART L
CHORUS 2
PART C
PART L
PART C
OUTRO
OUTRO 2
7 groovesBEILC+2Fill into the next barFill that ends a sectionInto the next partStop / hitRest
GROOVE · 12
FILL · 6
LAND · 6
RUN · 1
JOIN · 11
LINK · 10
SECTION · 5
WHOLE SONG · 1
ABOUT THIS DRUM PART

How to play American Idiot on drums

134 bars at 186 BPM -- fast, and 2:53 of it without a break -- on crash, hi-hat, snare, high tom, floor tom, kick and hi-hat foot.

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

TEMPO
186 BPM
TIME
4/4
BARS
134
LENGTH
2:53
DIFFICULTY
70/100

hi-hat through bars 3-38, toms through bars 39-40, hi-hat through bars 41-52, toms through bars 53-54, hi-hat through bars 55-56 and toms through bars 57-58, and 7 more changes after that.

The beat

The beat the song is built on is one bar, played through bars 4, 6 and 26, and 21 more places -- 18.2% of every bar the kit plays. This one moves around more than most: the beat is where to start, not the whole job.

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

The fills

6 fills to learn, played 15 times: bars 32, 68, 76, 84, 91, 92 and 9 more.

What the course does

It cuts the song into 45 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 -- C, I -- 2 exercises, about 28 minutes. Open above.
  2. The grooves the song is built on -- B -- 3 exercises, about 23 minutes.
  3. Through Part E -- 3 exercises, about 27 minutes.
  4. Through Part E -- 1 exercise, about 16 minutes.
  5. Through Part E and Part I -- 4 exercises, about 29 minutes.
  6. Through Part L -- 2 exercises, about 26 minutes.
  7. Bars 39-52 -- 4 exercises, about 20 minutes.
  8. Bars 54-74 -- 5 exercises, about 34 minutes.
  9. and 5 more sittings after that.
START THE COURSE ↑

Questions

What BPM is American Idiot?

186 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 Idiot hard to play on drums?

70 out of 100: demanding, mostly on the independence between the hands and the feet. The beat itself is 48 out of 100; the rest of the number is everything around it.

How long is the drum part?

134 bars, about 2:53 at the written tempo. The course breaks it into 45 exercises over 13 sittings, about 27 minutes each.

What do I need on the kit?

crash, hi-hat, snare, high 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 Idiot?

6 fills to learn, played 15 times: bars 32, 68, 76, 84, 91, 92 and 9 more.

READ OFF THE SCORE ITSELF · 134 BARS ANALYSED