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Better Strangers · Royal Blood

EXERCISE 1 OF 30
Groove A -- Chorus
0 / 71 BARS COVERED
0 / 30 PASSED · 22 BARS LIT · IN THE CHORUS, CHORUS 2, OUTRO
CHORUS
PART D
CHORUS 2
PART D
PART K
OUTRO
OUTRO 2
4 groovesAS7DKFill into the next barFill that ends a sectionInto the next partStop / hitRest
GROOVE · 3
FILL · 7
LAND · 7
RUN · 1
JOIN · 5
LINK · 2
SECTION · 4
WHOLE SONG · 1
ABOUT THIS DRUM PART

How to play Better Strangers on drums

71 bars of 6/4 -- not four -- at 109 BPM, 3:54 of playing on crash, ride, hi-hat, snare, mid tom, floor tom, kick and hi-hat foot.

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

TEMPO
109 BPM
TIME
6/4
BARS
71
LENGTH
3:54
DIFFICULTY
52/100

hi-hat through bars 1-48 and silence through bars 49-71.

The beat

The beat the song is built on is one bar, played through bars 1-8, 10-15 and 24, and 2 more places -- 45.8% of every bar the kit plays. Learn that one and most of the song is already under your hands.

    1
    1e+a2e+a3e+a4e+a5e+a6e+a
HH |o-----x-----x-----x-----|
SD |------x-----------x-----|
BD |x-------------xx----xx--|
HF |-x----------------------|
Better Strangers -- the groove · x hit · o open hi-hat · g ghost note · r cross-stick · X accent

The fills

7 fills to learn, played 7 times: bars 16, 23, 25, 30, 34, 38 and 1 more.

What the course does

It cuts the song into 22 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 -- A -- 2 exercises, about 17 minutes.
  2. The grooves the song is built on -- D -- 5 exercises, about 29 minutes.
  3. Bars 1-26 -- 10 exercises, about 33 minutes.
  4. Bars 27-39 -- 5 exercises, about 31 minutes.
  5. Bars 37-71 -- 7 exercises, about 30 minutes.
  6. The whole song -- 1 exercise, about 10 minutes.
START THE COURSE ↑

Questions

What BPM is Better Strangers?

109 BPM, in 6/4, 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 Better Strangers hard to play on drums?

52 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 36 out of 100; the rest of the number is everything around it.

How long is the drum part?

71 bars, about 3:54 at the written tempo. The course breaks it into 22 exercises over 6 sittings, about 25 minutes each.

What do I need on the kit?

crash, ride, hi-hat, snare, mid 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 Better Strangers?

7 fills to learn, played 7 times: bars 16, 23, 25, 30, 34, 38 and 1 more.

READ OFF THE SCORE ITSELF · 71 BARS ANALYSED