← SONGS

Blue Collar Man (Long Nights) · Styx

EXERCISE 33 OF 73
2-bar fill at bar 49 and 2 more
85 / 127 BARS COVERED
0 / 73 PASSED · 6 BARS LIT · IN THE CHORUS, CHORUS 2, CHORUS 3
PART E
PART J
CHORUS
VERSE
PART AB
PART AE
CHORUS 2
CHORUS 3
OUTRO 2
11 groovesOCAEJAB+6Fill into the next barFill that ends a sectionInto the next partStop / hitRest
GROOVE · 11
FILL · 17
LAND · 17
RUN · 2
JOIN · 11
LINK · 6
SECTION · 8
WHOLE SONG · 1
ABOUT THIS DRUM PART

How to play Blue Collar Man (Long Nights) on drums

127 bars of 4/4 at 122 BPM, about 4:08 of playing, on crash, ride, hi-hat, snare, high tom, mid tom, floor tom, kick and hi-hat foot.

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

TEMPO
122 BPM
TIME
4/4
BARS
127
LENGTH
4:08
DIFFICULTY
66/100

silence through bars 1-3, hi-hat through bars 4-5, toms through bars 6-11, hi-hat through bars 12-27, ride through bars 28-36 and toms through bars 37-38, and 9 more changes after that.

The beat

The beat the song is built on is one bar, played through bars 13-18, 21-22 and 25, and 2 more places -- 10.5% of every bar the kit plays. This one moves around more than most: the beat is where to start, not the whole job.

    13
    1e+a2e+a3e+a4e+a
HH |x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-|
SD |----x-------x---|
BD |x-------x-------|
Blue Collar Man (Long Nights) -- the groove · x hit · o open hi-hat · g ghost note · r cross-stick · X accent

The fills

17 fills to learn, played 50 times: bars 5, 9, 10, 11, 19, 23 and 44 more.

What the course does

It cuts the song into 55 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 -- J, O -- 2 exercises, about 27 minutes.
  2. The grooves the song is built on -- AE -- 3 exercises, about 22 minutes.
  3. Bars 4-127 -- 4 exercises, about 31 minutes.
  4. Through Part E and Part J -- 4 exercises, about 28 minutes.
  5. Through Part E and Part J -- 7 exercises, about 29 minutes.
  6. Through Part J and the Chorus -- 7 exercises, about 28 minutes.
  7. Through the Chorus -- 5 exercises, about 30 minutes.
  8. Through the Chorus and the Verse -- 5 exercises, about 32 minutes. Open above.
  9. and 8 more sittings after that.
START THE COURSE ↑

Questions

What BPM is Blue Collar Man (Long Nights)?

122 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 Blue Collar Man (Long Nights) hard to play on drums?

66 out of 100: demanding, mostly on 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?

127 bars, about 4:08 at the written tempo. The course breaks it into 55 exercises over 16 sittings, about 26 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 Blue Collar Man (Long Nights)?

17 fills to learn, played 50 times: bars 5, 9, 10, 11, 19, 23 and 44 more.

READ OFF THE SCORE ITSELF · 127 BARS ANALYSED