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Careless Whisper · George Michael

EXERCISE 1 OF 28
Groove B -- Chorus
0 / 113 BARS COVERED
0 / 28 PASSED · 43 BARS LIT · IN THE CHORUS, CHORUS 2, OUTRO
PART A
CHORUS
PART E
CHORUS 2
PART E
OUTRO
OUTRO 2
4 groovesBREAFill into the next barFill that ends a sectionInto the next partStop / hitRest
GROOVE · 6
FILL · 5
LAND · 5
JOIN · 4
LINK · 4
SECTION · 3
WHOLE SONG · 1
ABOUT THIS DRUM PART

How to play Careless Whisper on drums

113 bars of 4/4 at a walking 77 BPM, 5:52 of playing, on crash, hi-hat, snare, high tom, mid tom, floor tom and kick.

65 out of 100: demanding, mostly on how much of it falls off the beat.

TEMPO
77 BPM
TIME
4/4
BARS
113
LENGTH
5:52
DIFFICULTY
65/100

The time is kept on the hi-hat the whole way through.

The beat

The beat the song is built on is one bar, played through bars 9-17, 19 and 21-23, and 24 more places -- 38.1% of every bar the kit plays. Learn that one and most of the song is already under your hands.

    10
    1e+a2e+a3e+a4e+a
HH |x-x-x-x-x-x-x-o-|
SD |xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx|
BD |x------xx-------|
Careless Whisper -- the groove · x hit · o open hi-hat · g ghost note · r cross-stick · X accent

The fills

5 fills to learn, played 9 times: bars 32, 52, 60, 67, 68, 72 and 3 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 -- B -- 1 exercise, about 14 minutes.
  2. The grooves the song is built on -- R -- 1 exercise, about 18 minutes.
  3. The grooves the song is built on -- E -- 3 exercises, about 25 minutes.
  4. Through the Chorus -- 1 exercise, about 16 minutes.
  5. Through the Chorus and Part E -- 3 exercises, about 27 minutes.
  6. Through Part E and the Chorus 2 -- 4 exercises, about 27 minutes.
  7. Through Part E and the Outro -- 6 exercises, about 25 minutes.
  8. Through the Outro and the Outro 2 -- 7 exercises, about 30 minutes.
  9. and 1 more sittings after that.
START THE COURSE ↑

Questions

What BPM is Careless Whisper?

77 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 Careless Whisper hard to play on drums?

65 out of 100: demanding, mostly on how much of it falls off the beat. The beat itself is 48 out of 100; the rest of the number is everything around it.

How long is the drum part?

113 bars, about 5:52 at the written tempo. The course breaks it into 22 exercises over 9 sittings, about 22 minutes each.

What do I need on the kit?

crash, hi-hat, snare, high tom, mid 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 Careless Whisper?

5 fills to learn, played 9 times: bars 32, 52, 60, 67, 68, 72 and 3 more.

READ OFF THE SCORE ITSELF · 113 BARS ANALYSED