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Cracker Island · Gorillaz

EXERCISE 4 OF 18
Join Chorus to Verse (bars 15-17)
69 / 97 BARS COVERED
0 / 18 PASSED · 3 BARS LIT · IN THE CHORUS, VERSE
CHORUS
VERSE
OUTRO
3 groovesDCS1Fill into the next barFill that ends a sectionInto the next partStop / hitRest
GROOVE · 6
FILL · 2
LAND · 2
RUN · 1
JOIN · 2
LINK · 2
SECTION · 2
WHOLE SONG · 1
ABOUT THIS DRUM PART

How to play Cracker Island on drums

97 bars of 4/4 at 120 BPM, about 3:14 of playing, on crash, hi-hat, snare, high tom, mid tom, kick and hi-hat foot.

59 out of 100, a step up from a first song, and the work is in the speed of the hand keeping time.

TEMPO
120 BPM
TIME
4/4
BARS
97
LENGTH
3:14
DIFFICULTY
59/100

hi-hat through bars 3-97.

The beat

The beat the song is built on is one bar, played through bars 17-19, 21-22 and 26-27, and 14 more places -- 51% of every bar the kit plays. Learn that one and most of the song is already under your hands.

    17
    1e+a2e+a3e+a4e+a
HH |xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx|
SD |----x-------x---|
BD |x-------x-------|
Cracker Island -- the groove · x hit · o open hi-hat · g ghost note · r cross-stick · X accent

The fills

2 fills to learn, played 3 times: bars 24, 32 and 36.

What the course does

It cuts the song into 15 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, C -- 3 exercises, about 30 minutes.
  2. Through the Chorus and the Verse -- 3 exercises, about 25 minutes. Open above.
  3. Through the Verse -- 2 exercises, about 30 minutes.
  4. Through the Verse and the Outro -- 8 exercises, about 34 minutes.
  5. The whole song -- 2 exercises, about 14 minutes.
START THE COURSE ↑

Questions

What BPM is Cracker Island?

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 Cracker Island hard to play on drums?

59 out of 100, a step up from a first song, and the work is in the speed of the hand keeping time. The beat itself is 55 out of 100; the rest of the number is everything around it.

How long is the drum part?

97 bars, about 3:14 at the written tempo. The course breaks it into 15 exercises over 5 sittings, about 27 minutes each.

What do I need on the kit?

crash, hi-hat, snare, high tom, mid 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 Cracker Island?

2 fills to learn, played 3 times: bars 24, 32 and 36.

READ OFF THE SCORE ITSELF · 97 BARS ANALYSED