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Ballad Of Big Nothing · Elliott Smith

EXERCISE 6 OF 11
Fill at bar 47 (a small one)
61 / 75 BARS COVERED
0 / 11 PASSED · 1 BAR LIT · IN THE OUTRO
COUNT-IN
OUTRO
2 groovesCS1Fill into the next barFill that ends a sectionInto the next partStop / hitRest
GROOVE · 2
FILL · 3
LAND · 3
RUN · 1
SECTION · 1
WHOLE SONG · 1
ABOUT THIS DRUM PART

How to play Ballad Of Big Nothing on drums

75 bars of 4/4 at a walking 109 BPM, 2:45 of playing, on crash, snare, mid tom and kick.

36 out of 100 -- a fair first song -- with the independence between the hands and the feet the part that decides it.

TEMPO
109 BPM
TIME
4/4
BARS
75
LENGTH
2:45
DIFFICULTY
36/100

silence through bars 1-8, snare through bars 9-73 and kick and crashes through bars 74-75.

The beat

The beat the song is built on is one bar, played through bars 10-16, 18 and 20, and 16 more places -- 65.7% of every bar the kit plays. Learn that one and the song is very nearly finished.

    10
    1e+a2e+a3e+a4e+a
CC |x---x---x---x---|
SD |----x-------x---|
BD |x-------x-x---x-|
Ballad Of Big Nothing -- the groove · x hit · o open hi-hat · g ghost note · r cross-stick · X accent

The fills

3 fills to learn, played 3 times: bars 23, 47 and 65.

What the course does

It cuts the song into 7 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 -- 5 exercises, about 31 minutes.
  2. The whole song -- 6 exercises, about 25 minutes. Open above.
START THE COURSE ↑

Questions

What BPM is Ballad Of Big Nothing?

109 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 Ballad Of Big Nothing hard to play on drums?

36 out of 100 -- a fair first song -- with the independence between the hands and the feet the part that decides it. The beat itself is 28 out of 100; the rest of the number is everything around it.

How long is the drum part?

75 bars, about 2:45 at the written tempo. The course breaks it into 7 exercises over 2 sittings, about 28 minutes each.

What do I need on the kit?

crash, snare, mid tom and kick. Nothing in the part asks for anything else.

How many fills are in Ballad Of Big Nothing?

3 fills to learn, played 3 times: bars 23, 47 and 65.

READ OFF THE SCORE ITSELF · 75 BARS ANALYSED