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By The Way · Red Hot Chili Peppers

EXERCISE 1 OF 43
Groove D -- Chorus
0 / 100 BARS COVERED
0 / 43 PASSED · 31 BARS LIT · IN THE CHORUS, CHORUS 2, OUTRO
COUNT-IN
PART B
CHORUS
PART H
CHORUS 2
PART S6
PART B
OUTRO
OUTRO 2
7 groovesDBRHS1+2Fill into the next barFill that ends a sectionInto the next partStop / hitRest
GROOVE · 8
FILL · 9
LAND · 9
RUN · 1
JOIN · 7
LINK · 4
SECTION · 4
WHOLE SONG · 1
ABOUT THIS DRUM PART

How to play By The Way on drums

100 bars of 4/4 at 120 BPM, about 3:20 of playing, on crash, ride, hi-hat, snare, high tom, floor tom, kick and hi-hat foot.

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

TEMPO
120 BPM
TIME
4/4
BARS
100
LENGTH
3:20
DIFFICULTY
78/100

silence through bars 1-7, hi-hat through bars 8-16, toms through bars 17-32, ride through bars 33-40, toms through bars 41-57 and silence through bars 58-63, and 3 more changes after that.

The beat

The beat the song is built on is one bar, played through bars 17-19, 21-23 and 25-27, and 6 more places -- 35.6% of every bar the kit plays. Learn that one and most of the song is already under your hands.

    18
    1e+a2e+a3e+a4e+a
SD |----xg---x--xg--|
T1 |---------------x|
FT |x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-|
BD |x-x----x--xx----|
HF |x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-|
By The Way -- the groove · x hit · o open hi-hat · g ghost note · r cross-stick · X accent

The fills

9 fills to learn, played 22 times: bars 16, 20, 24, 28, 32, 34 and 16 more.

What the course does

It cuts the song into 33 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 -- 3 exercises, about 26 minutes. Open above.
  2. The grooves the song is built on -- B -- 1 exercise, about 16 minutes.
  3. The grooves the song is built on -- I (a two-bar phrase) -- 1 exercise, about 18 minutes.
  4. Through Part B and the Chorus -- 4 exercises, about 27 minutes.
  5. Bars 8-37 -- 4 exercises, about 26 minutes.
  6. Through the Chorus and Part H -- 6 exercises, about 26 minutes.
  7. Bars 37-57 -- 6 exercises, about 28 minutes.
  8. Bars 71-77 -- 6 exercises, about 30 minutes.
  9. and 3 more sittings after that.
START THE COURSE ↑

Questions

What BPM is By The Way?

120 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 By The Way hard to play on drums?

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

How long is the drum part?

100 bars, about 3:20 at the written tempo. The course breaks it into 33 exercises over 11 sittings, about 25 minutes each.

What do I need on the kit?

crash, ride, hi-hat, snare, high 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 By The Way?

9 fills to learn, played 22 times: bars 16, 20, 24, 28, 32, 34 and 16 more.

READ OFF THE SCORE ITSELF · 100 BARS ANALYSED