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American River · Destroy Boys

EXERCISE 28 OF 65
Fill at bar 52 (a small one)
77 / 110 BARS COVERED
0 / 65 PASSED · 1 BAR LIT · IN THE PART J
PART A
CHORUS
PART E
CHORUS 2
PART H
PART J
CHORUS 3
PART R
CHORUS 4
8 groovesCJRAE+3Fill into the next barFill that ends a sectionInto the next partStop / hitRest
GROOVE · 9
FILL · 15
LAND · 15
RUN · 1
JOIN · 10
LINK · 8
SECTION · 6
WHOLE SONG · 1
ABOUT THIS DRUM PART

How to play American River on drums

110 bars at 184 BPM -- fast, and 2:24 of it without a break -- on crash, ride, hi-hat, snare, mid tom, floor tom and kick.

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

TEMPO
184 BPM
TIME
4/4
BARS
110
LENGTH
2:24
DIFFICULTY
45/100

toms through bars 1-12, hi-hat through bars 13-20, toms through bars 21-28, snare through bars 29-36, ride through bars 37-43 and toms through bars 44-60, and 5 more changes after that.

The beat

The beat the song is built on is one bar, played through bars 13-19, 29-35 and 61-63, and 3 more places -- 29.1% of every bar the kit plays. That is the spine of it; everything else is what happens around it.

    13
    1e+a2e+a3e+a4e+a
CC |x---------------|
HH |----o---o---o---|
SD |------x-----x---|
BD |x---------x-----|
American River -- the groove · x hit · o open hi-hat · g ghost note · r cross-stick · X accent

The fills

15 fills to learn, played 22 times: bars 12, 20, 28, 36, 44, 52 and 16 more.

What the course does

It cuts the song into 49 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, J -- 2 exercises, about 21 minutes.
  2. The grooves the song is built on -- A -- 5 exercises, about 28 minutes.
  3. Bars 9-24 -- 7 exercises, about 35 minutes.
  4. Bars 25-37 -- 5 exercises, about 27 minutes.
  5. Bars 33-48 -- 8 exercises, about 31 minutes.
  6. Through Part J and the Chorus 3 -- 9 exercises, about 29 minutes. Open above.
  7. Through the Chorus 3 -- 6 exercises, about 28 minutes.
  8. Through the Chorus 3 and Part R -- 7 exercises, about 35 minutes.
  9. and 4 more sittings after that.
START THE COURSE ↑

Questions

What BPM is American River?

184 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 River hard to play on drums?

45 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 30 out of 100; the rest of the number is everything around it.

How long is the drum part?

110 bars, about 2:24 at the written tempo. The course breaks it into 49 exercises over 12 sittings, about 27 minutes each.

What do I need on the kit?

crash, ride, hi-hat, snare, mid tom, floor tom and kick. That is most of a full kit; the part moves around it rather than sitting in one place.

How many fills are in American River?

15 fills to learn, played 22 times: bars 12, 20, 28, 36, 44, 52 and 16 more.

READ OFF THE SCORE ITSELF · 110 BARS ANALYSED