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Careless Whisper · Seether

EXERCISE 1 OF 49
Groove B -- Chorus
0 / 86 BARS COVERED
0 / 49 PASSED · 25 BARS LIT
CHORUS
PART F
CHORUS 2
PART F
CHORUS 3
PART Q
OUTRO
OUTRO 2
5 groovesBRFQJFill into the next barFill that ends a sectionInto the next partStop / hitRest
GROOVE · 7
FILL · 13
LAND · 13
RUN · 2
JOIN · 6
LINK · 3
SECTION · 4
WHOLE SONG · 1
ABOUT THIS DRUM PART

How to play Careless Whisper on drums

86 bars, 5:08, at 67 BPM: slow enough that every note is exposed. Crash, hi-hat, snare, high tom, mid tom, floor tom, kick and hi-hat foot and nothing else.

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

TEMPO
67 BPM
TIME
4/4
BARS
86
LENGTH
5:08
DIFFICULTY
59/100

hi-hat through bar 1, snare through bars 2-9, hi-hat through bars 10-17, snare through bars 18-28, hi-hat through bars 29-38 and snare through bars 39-48, and 3 more changes after that.

The beat

The beat the song is built on is one bar, played through bars 2-4, 6-8 and 18-20, and 8 more places -- 29.1% of every bar the kit plays. That is the spine of it; everything else is what happens around it.

    2
    1e+a2e+a3e+a4e+a
CC |x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-|
SD |----x-------x---|
BD |x-x----x-xx--x-x|
HF |----x-x-x---x-x-|
Careless Whisper -- the groove · x hit · o open hi-hat · g ghost note · r cross-stick · X accent

The fills

13 fills to learn, played 21 times: bars 1, 5, 9, 17, 21, 25 and 15 more.

What the course does

It cuts the song into 35 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 -- 6 exercises, about 29 minutes. Open above.
  2. The grooves the song is built on -- R -- 3 exercises, about 21 minutes.
  3. The grooves the song is built on -- F -- 3 exercises, about 20 minutes.
  4. Bars 7-26 -- 4 exercises, about 26 minutes.
  5. Through the Chorus 2 and Part F -- 4 exercises, about 25 minutes.
  6. Through Part F and the Chorus 3 -- 7 exercises, about 30 minutes.
  7. Bars 49-58 -- 6 exercises, about 31 minutes.
  8. Bars 53-67 -- 7 exercises, about 28 minutes.
  9. and 2 more sittings after that.
START THE COURSE ↑

Questions

What BPM is Careless Whisper?

67 BPM, in 4/4, with the time kept in sixteenth notes. Slow enough to hear every mistake, which is why the room lets you sit at the written tempo rather than under it.

Is Careless Whisper hard to play on drums?

59 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 41 out of 100; the rest of the number is everything around it.

How long is the drum part?

86 bars, about 5:08 at the written tempo. The course breaks it into 35 exercises over 10 sittings, about 26 minutes each.

What do I need on the kit?

crash, 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 Careless Whisper?

13 fills to learn, played 21 times: bars 1, 5, 9, 17, 21, 25 and 15 more.

READ OFF THE SCORE ITSELF · 86 BARS ANALYSED