← SONGS

Dirt · Alice in Chains

EXERCISE 1 OF 40
Groove F -- Chorus
0 / 73 BARS COVERED
0 / 40 PASSED · 24 BARS LIT · IN THE CHORUS, CHORUS 2, CHORUS 3
PART B
CHORUS
PART H
CHORUS 2
PART H
PART M
CHORUS 3
OUTRO
OUTRO 2
5 groovesFHBMS1Fill into the next barFill that ends a sectionInto the next partStop / hitRest
GROOVE · 5
FILL · 9
LAND · 9
RUN · 2
JOIN · 6
LINK · 4
SECTION · 4
WHOLE SONG · 1
ABOUT THIS DRUM PART

How to play Dirt on drums

73 bars, 5:37, at 52 BPM: slow enough that every note is exposed. Crash, ride, hi-hat, snare, high tom, mid tom, floor tom, kick and hi-hat foot and nothing else.

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

TEMPO
52 BPM
TIME
4/4
BARS
73
LENGTH
5:37
DIFFICULTY
75/100

ride through bars 2-17, toms through bars 18-21, ride through bars 22-33, toms through bars 34-40, ride through bars 41-61 and toms through bars 62-69, and 1 more change after that.

The beat

The beat the song is built on is one bar, played through bars 7-8, 10-12 and 14-16, and 6 more places -- 33.3% of every bar the kit plays. That is the spine of it; everything else is what happens around it.

    8
    1.......2.......3.......4.......
CC |x---x---------------------------|
RD |--------x-g-x-g-x-g-x-g-x-g-x-g-|
SD |--------x---------------x-------|
T1 |----------------------------x---|
BD |x---x-----x-x-----x-x-----x---x-|
Dirt -- the groove · x hit · o open hi-hat · g ghost note · r cross-stick · X accent

The fills

9 fills to learn, played 15 times: bars 4, 5, 6, 21, 22, 40 and 9 more.

What the course does

It cuts the song into 30 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 -- 1 exercise, about 17 minutes.
  2. The grooves the song is built on -- H -- 1 exercise, about 17 minutes.
  3. The grooves the song is built on -- G -- 2 exercises, about 30 minutes.
  4. Through Part B and the Chorus -- 6 exercises, about 27 minutes.
  5. Bars 14-25 -- 7 exercises, about 33 minutes.
  6. Through Part H and Part M -- 3 exercises, about 27 minutes.
  7. Through Part H and Part M -- 7 exercises, about 30 minutes.
  8. Through Part M and the Chorus 3 -- 7 exercises, about 30 minutes.
  9. and 1 more sittings after that.
START THE COURSE ↑

Questions

What BPM is Dirt?

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

Is Dirt hard to play on drums?

75 out of 100: demanding, mostly on the independence between the hands and the feet. The beat itself is 66 out of 100; the rest of the number is everything around it.

How long is the drum part?

73 bars, about 5:37 at the written tempo. The course breaks it into 30 exercises over 9 sittings, about 27 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 Dirt?

9 fills to learn, played 15 times: bars 4, 5, 6, 21, 22, 40 and 9 more.

READ OFF THE SCORE ITSELF · 73 BARS ANALYSED