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Bertha · Grateful Dead

EXERCISE 9 OF 35
Join Chorus to Part F (bars 49-51)
187 / 245 BARS COVERED
0 / 35 PASSED · 3 BARS LIT · IN THE CHORUS, PART F
CHORUS
PART F
CHORUS 2
CHORUS 3
CHORUS 4
8 groovesDGHFI+3Fill into the next barFill that ends a sectionInto the next partStop / hitRest
GROOVE · 8
FILL · 3
LAND · 3
RUN · 1
JOIN · 10
LINK · 2
SECTION · 7
WHOLE SONG · 1
ABOUT THIS DRUM PART

How to play Bertha on drums

245 bars at 170 BPM -- fast, and 5:45 of it without a break -- on crash, ride, hi-hat, snare, high tom, mid tom, kick and hi-hat foot.

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

TEMPO
170 BPM
TIME
4/4
BARS
245
LENGTH
5:45
DIFFICULTY
51/100

toms through bars 2-4, hi-hat through bars 5-77, snare through bars 78-84, hi-hat through bars 85-189, ride through bars 190-196 and hi-hat through bars 197-207, and 6 more changes after that.

The beat

The beat the song is built on is one bar, played through bars 5-49, 57-77 and 85-98, and 10 more places -- 70.1% of every bar the kit plays. Learn that one and the song is very nearly finished.

    6
    1e+a2e+a3e+a4e+a
HH |x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-|
SD |----x-------x---|
BD |x-------x-------|
Bertha -- the groove · x hit · o open hi-hat · g ghost note · r cross-stick · X accent

The fills

3 fills to learn, played 9 times: bars 2, 3, 4, 188, 208, 209 and 3 more.

What the course does

It cuts the song into 31 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 -- 5 exercises, about 26 minutes.
  2. Bars 3-143 -- 3 exercises, about 29 minutes.
  3. Bars 49-78 -- 5 exercises, about 30 minutes. Open above.
  4. Bars 78-203 -- 4 exercises, about 27 minutes.
  5. Through Part I and the Chorus 4 -- 5 exercises, about 31 minutes.
  6. Through the Chorus 4 and Part H -- 5 exercises, about 34 minutes.
  7. Bars 203-223 -- 7 exercises, about 30 minutes.
  8. The whole song -- 1 exercise, about 10 minutes.
START THE COURSE ↑

Questions

What BPM is Bertha?

170 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 Bertha hard to play on drums?

51 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 38 out of 100; the rest of the number is everything around it.

How long is the drum part?

245 bars, about 5:45 at the written tempo. The course breaks it into 31 exercises over 8 sittings, about 27 minutes each.

What do I need on the kit?

crash, ride, hi-hat, snare, high tom, mid 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 Bertha?

3 fills to learn, played 9 times: bars 2, 3, 4, 188, 208, 209 and 3 more.

READ OFF THE SCORE ITSELF · 245 BARS ANALYSED