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Doctor Wu · Steely Dan

EXERCISE 22 OF 59
Run I1 · Chorus (bars 25-49)
93 / 119 BARS COVERED
0 / 59 PASSED · 25 BARS LIT · IN THE CHORUS
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
GROOVE · 12
FILL · 11
LAND · 11
RUN · 4
JOIN · 10
LINK · 4
SECTION · 6
WHOLE SONG · 1
ABOUT THIS DRUM PART

How to play Doctor Wu on drums

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.

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

TEMPO
120 BPM
TIME
4/4
BARS
119
LENGTH
3:58
DIFFICULTY
58/100

ride through bars 1-4, hi-hat through bars 5-24, ride through bars 25-47, toms through bars 48-49, ride through bars 50-59 and toms through bars 60-61, and 4 more changes after that.

The beat

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.

    26
    1e+a2e+a3e+a4e+a
RD |x---x---x---x---|
SD |----x-------x---|
BD |x-----x-x-------|
Doctor Wu -- the groove · x hit · o open hi-hat · g ghost note · r cross-stick · X accent

The fills

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

What the course does

It cuts the song into 47 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 -- I, G -- 3 exercises, about 29 minutes.
  2. The grooves the song is built on -- S -- 2 exercises, about 22 minutes.
  3. Through Part A and Part E -- 4 exercises, about 27 minutes.
  4. Bars 3-28 -- 8 exercises, about 34 minutes.
  5. Through the Chorus and Part K -- 4 exercises, about 27 minutes.
  6. Through the Chorus and Part K -- 3 exercises, about 30 minutes. Open above.
  7. Bars 50-66 -- 7 exercises, about 26 minutes.
  8. Bars 64-85 -- 7 exercises, about 30 minutes.
  9. and 4 more sittings after that.
START THE COURSE ↑

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