← SONGS

Bigger Than Us · White Lies

EXERCISE 8 OF 27
Join Part B to Chorus (bars 27-29)
108 / 161 BARS COVERED
0 / 27 PASSED · 3 BARS LIT · IN THE PART B, CHORUS
PART B
CHORUS
PART S4
OUTRO 2
6 groovesDBS4IL+1Fill into the next barFill that ends a sectionInto the next partStop / hitRest
GROOVE · 8
FILL · 3
LAND · 3
RUN · 1
JOIN · 5
LINK · 1
SECTION · 5
WHOLE SONG · 1
ABOUT THIS DRUM PART

How to play Bigger Than Us on drums

161 bars of 4/4 at 140 BPM, about 4:36 of playing, on crash, hi-hat, snare, high tom, floor tom and kick.

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

TEMPO
140 BPM
TIME
4/4
BARS
161
LENGTH
4:36
DIFFICULTY
64/100

silence through bars 1-4, hi-hat through bars 5-93, silence through bars 94-103, toms through bars 104-112 and hi-hat through bars 113-161.

The beat

The beat the song is built on is a 2-bar phrase, played through bars 29-31, 33-35 and 37-39, and 17 more places -- 40% of every bar the kit plays. Learn that one and most of the song is already under your hands.

    29               30
    1e+a2e+a3e+a4e+a 1e+a2e+a3e+a4e+a
CC |x---------------|----------------|
HH |----o---o---o---|o---o---o---o---|
SD |--------x---x-x-|--x-----x-------|
BD |x---x-x---------|----x-------x---|
Bigger Than Us -- the groove · x hit · o open hi-hat · g ghost note · r cross-stick · X accent

The fills

3 fills to learn, played 5 times: bars 28, 76, 102, 108 and 112.

What the course does

It cuts the song into 23 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 -- 1 exercise, about 11 minutes.
  2. The grooves the song is built on -- B -- 2 exercises, about 26 minutes.
  3. The grooves the song is built on -- H -- 4 exercises, about 29 minutes.
  4. Through Part B and the Chorus -- 3 exercises, about 23 minutes. Open above.
  5. Through the Chorus and Part S4 -- 3 exercises, about 26 minutes.
  6. Through Part S4 -- 4 exercises, about 20 minutes.
  7. Through Part S4 and Part I -- 3 exercises, about 22 minutes.
  8. Bars 107-113 -- 5 exercises, about 27 minutes.
  9. and 1 more sittings after that.
START THE COURSE ↑

Questions

What BPM is Bigger Than Us?

140 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 Bigger Than Us hard to play on drums?

64 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 29 out of 100; the rest of the number is everything around it.

How long is the drum part?

161 bars, about 4:36 at the written tempo. The course breaks it into 23 exercises over 9 sittings, about 22 minutes each.

What do I need on the kit?

crash, hi-hat, snare, high 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 Bigger Than Us?

3 fills to learn, played 5 times: bars 28, 76, 102, 108 and 112.

READ OFF THE SCORE ITSELF · 161 BARS ANALYSED