Doctor Wu · Steely Dan

119 bars of 4/4 at 120 BPM, about 3:58 of playing, on crash, ride, hi-hat, snare, high tom, mid tom, floor tom and kick.

Pop120 to 149 BPM
TEMPO
120 BPM
TIME
4/4
BARS
119
LENGTH
3:58
DIFFICULTY
58/100
THE BEAT

One bar, and 28% of the song

The beat the song is built on is one bar, played through bars 25-31, 33-44 and 82-86, and 3 more places -- 27.7% of every bar the kit plays. That is the spine of it; everything else is what happens around it.

LOOP · 120 BPM
DOCTOR WU · BAR 26
THE BEAT, WRITTEN OUT →
THE FILLS

Where it comes off the beat

11 fills to learn, played 20 times: bars 2, 24, 32, 47, 54, 55 and 14 more.

LOOP · 120 BPM
BAR 2 · LANDS ON BAR 3 · PLAYED 3 TIMES
LOOP · 120 BPM
BAR 24 · LANDS ON BAR 25 · PLAYED 2 TIMES
LOOP · 120 BPM
BAR 32 · LANDS ON BAR 33
LOOP · 120 BPM
BARS 54-57 · LANDS ON BAR 58 · PLAYED 4 TIMES

7 more fills are written out on the fills page.

EVERY FILL, WRITTEN OUT →
THE SHAPE

How the song is built

119 bars across 12 sections: 78 keep time, 20 are fills and 7 are stops. The longest unbroken stretch of time is bars 10-23.

PART G
CHORUS
PART K
PART S
CHORUS 3
OUTRO 2
7 groovesIGSKA+2Fill into the next barFill that ends a sectionInto the next partStop / hitRest

Questions

What BPM is Doctor Wu?

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 Doctor Wu hard to play on drums?

58 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 36 out of 100; the rest of the number is everything around it.

How long is the drum part?

119 bars, about 3:58 at the written tempo. The course breaks it into 47 exercises over 12 sittings, about 27 minutes each.

What do I need on the kit?

crash, ride, 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 Doctor Wu?

11 fills to learn, played 20 times: bars 2, 24, 32, 47, 54, 55 and 14 more.

READ OFF THE SCORE ITSELF · 119 BARS ANALYSED
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