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Bittersweet · Big Head Todd And The Monsters

Bittersweet · Big Head Todd And The Monsters
EXERCISE 30 OF 60
Groove S
149 / 181 BARS COVERED
0 / 60 PASSED · 2 BARS LIT · IN THE CHORUS 2
PART H
CHORUS
PART H
CHORUS 2
PART D
PART H
OUTRO
7 groovesKHDES1+2Fill into the next barFill that ends a sectionInto the next partStop / hitRest
GROOVE · 10
FILL · 15
LAND · 15
RUN · 2
JOIN · 7
LINK · 5
SECTION · 5
WHOLE SONG · 1
ABOUT THIS DRUM PART

How to play Bittersweet on drums

181 bars of 4/4 at 117 BPM, about 6:09 of playing, on crash, ride, hi-hat, snare, high tom, mid tom, floor tom, kick and hi-hat foot.

70 out of 100: demanding, mostly on the independence between the hands and the feet.

TEMPO
117 BPM
TIME
4/4
BARS
181
LENGTH
6:09
DIFFICULTY
70/100

silence through bars 1-7, snare through bars 8-9, ride through bars 10-16, hi-hat through bars 17-57, ride through bars 58-60 and hi-hat through bars 61-101, and 5 more changes after that.

The beat

The beat the song is built on is one bar, played through bars 19-32, 34-40 and 63-76, and 4 more places -- 31.6% of every bar the kit plays. That is the spine of it; everything else is what happens around it.

    19
    1.......2.......3.......4.......
HH |X---x---X---x---X---x---X---x---|
SD |--------r---------------r-------|
BD |x-----------x---x---------------|
Bittersweet -- the groove · x hit · o open hi-hat · g ghost note · r cross-stick · X accent

The fills

15 fills to learn, played 21 times: bars 8, 9, 17, 60, 61, 77 and 15 more.

What the course does

It cuts the song into 44 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 -- H, K -- 3 exercises, about 31 minutes.
  2. The grooves the song is built on -- E -- 2 exercises, about 28 minutes.
  3. Bars 8-124 -- 6 exercises, about 24 minutes.
  4. Through Part E and Part H -- 4 exercises, about 27 minutes.
  5. Through Part E and Part H -- 4 exercises, about 29 minutes.
  6. Through the Chorus -- 2 exercises, about 28 minutes.
  7. Bars 58-86 -- 8 exercises, about 28 minutes.
  8. Through the Chorus 2 -- 3 exercises, about 18 minutes. Open above.
  9. and 4 more sittings after that.
START THE COURSE ↑

Questions

What BPM is Bittersweet?

117 BPM, in 4/4, with the time kept in thirty-second 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 Bittersweet hard to play on drums?

70 out of 100: demanding, mostly on the independence between the hands and the feet. The beat itself is 41 out of 100; the rest of the number is everything around it.

How long is the drum part?

181 bars, about 6:09 at the written tempo. The course breaks it into 44 exercises over 12 sittings, about 28 minutes each.

What do I need on the kit?

crash, ride, hi-hat, snare, high tom, 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 Bittersweet?

15 fills to learn, played 21 times: bars 8, 9, 17, 60, 61, 77 and 15 more.

READ OFF THE SCORE ITSELF · 181 BARS ANALYSED