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Ants Marching · Dave Matthews Band

EXERCISE 25 OF 76
Part J into Chorus 2 with the record (bars 35-42)
49 / 125 BARS COVERED
0 / 76 PASSED · 8 BARS LIT · IN THE PART J, CHORUS 2
PART A
CHORUS
PART J
CHORUS 2
PART J
PART AE
PART AH
PART A
OUTRO
OUTRO 2
7 groovesCJAHAAE+2Fill into the next barFill that ends a sectionInto the next partStop / hitRest
GROOVE · 13
FILL · 18
LAND · 18
RUN · 1
JOIN · 11
LINK · 9
SECTION · 5
WHOLE SONG · 1
ABOUT THIS DRUM PART

How to play Ants Marching on drums

125 bars of 4/4 at 113 BPM, about 4:25 of playing, on crash, ride, hi-hat, snare, high tom, mid tom, floor tom and kick.

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

TEMPO
113 BPM
TIME
4/4
BARS
125
LENGTH
4:25
DIFFICULTY
58/100

snare through bars 1-6, hi-hat through bars 7-66, snare through bars 67-68, hi-hat through bars 69-96, snare through bars 97-104 and hi-hat through bars 105-125.

The beat

The beat the song is built on is one bar, played through bars 8, 11-17 and 23-24, and 4 more places -- 12% of every bar the kit plays. This one moves around more than most: the beat is where to start, not the whole job.

    23
    1e+a2e+a3e+a4e+a
HH |o-----x-X-x-xX--|
SD |----x-----------|
BD |x-------x---x---|
Ants Marching -- the groove · x hit · o open hi-hat · g ghost note · r cross-stick · X accent

The fills

18 fills to learn, played 36 times: bars 10, 18, 26, 32, 34, 46 and 30 more.

What the course does

It cuts the song into 57 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, B -- 2 exercises, about 26 minutes.
  2. The grooves the song is built on -- J -- 5 exercises, about 27 minutes.
  3. Through Part A and the Chorus -- 5 exercises, about 30 minutes.
  4. Through the Chorus and Part G -- 5 exercises, about 29 minutes.
  5. Through Part G and Part J -- 4 exercises, about 27 minutes.
  6. Through Part J and the Chorus 2 -- 3 exercises, about 28 minutes.
  7. Through Part J and the Chorus 2 -- 4 exercises, about 23 minutes. Open above.
  8. Bars 53-125 -- 3 exercises, about 25 minutes.
  9. and 8 more sittings after that.
START THE COURSE ↑

Questions

What BPM is Ants Marching?

113 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 Ants Marching hard to play on drums?

58 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 40 out of 100; the rest of the number is everything around it.

How long is the drum part?

125 bars, about 4:25 at the written tempo. The course breaks it into 57 exercises over 16 sittings, about 27 minutes each.

What do I need on the kit?

crash, ride, hi-hat, snare, high tom, 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 Ants Marching?

18 fills to learn, played 36 times: bars 10, 18, 26, 32, 34, 46 and 30 more.

READ OFF THE SCORE ITSELF · 125 BARS ANALYSED