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Deacon Blues · Steely Dan

EXERCISE 4 OF 25
Groove A (a two-bar phrase)
169 / 210 BARS COVERED
0 / 25 PASSED · 4 BARS LIT · IN THE PART C, PART N
PART C
CHORUS
PART H
CHORUS 2
PART H
CHORUS 3
PART N
CHORUS 4
OUTRO
OUTRO 2
4 groovesFHNCFill into the next barFill that ends a sectionInto the next partStop / hitRest
GROOVE · 7
FILL · 2
LAND · 2
RUN · 1
JOIN · 5
LINK · 4
SECTION · 3
WHOLE SONG · 1
ABOUT THIS DRUM PART

How to play Deacon Blues on drums

210 bars of 4/4 at 116 BPM, about 7:15 of playing, on crash, ride, hi-hat, snare, high tom, mid tom, floor tom, kick and hi-hat foot.

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

TEMPO
116 BPM
TIME
4/4
BARS
210
LENGTH
7:15
DIFFICULTY
51/100

ride through bars 1-6, hi-hat through bars 7-38, ride through bars 39-59, hi-hat through bars 60-92, ride through bars 93-114 and hi-hat through bars 115-122, and 7 more changes after that.

The beat

The beat the song is built on is one bar, played through bars 7-21, 23-37 and 61-75, and 5 more places -- 57.1% of every bar the kit plays. Learn that one and most of the song is already under your hands.

    7
    1e+a2e+a3e+a4e+a
HH |x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-|
SD |----x-------x---|
BD |x-----x-x-----x-|
Deacon Blues -- the groove · x hit · o open hi-hat · g ghost note · r cross-stick · X accent

The fills

2 fills to learn, played 5 times: bars 136, 137, 138, 177 and 178.

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 -- F, H -- 3 exercises, about 30 minutes.
  2. Through Part C -- 2 exercises, about 27 minutes. Open above.
  3. Through Part C and the Chorus -- 4 exercises, about 26 minutes.
  4. Bars 35-118 -- 5 exercises, about 34 minutes.
  5. Through the Chorus 3 and Part N -- 5 exercises, about 28 minutes.
  6. Bars 137-179 -- 5 exercises, about 21 minutes.
  7. The whole song -- 1 exercise, about 10 minutes.
START THE COURSE ↑

Questions

What BPM is Deacon Blues?

116 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 Deacon Blues hard to play on drums?

51 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 37 out of 100; the rest of the number is everything around it.

How long is the drum part?

210 bars, about 7:15 at the written tempo. The course breaks it into 22 exercises over 7 sittings, about 25 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 Deacon Blues?

2 fills to learn, played 5 times: bars 136, 137, 138, 177 and 178.

READ OFF THE SCORE ITSELF · 210 BARS ANALYSED