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Downer · Nirvana

EXERCISE 14 OF 30
Groove G
65 / 86 BARS COVERED
0 / 30 PASSED · 2 BARS LIT · IN THE CHORUS 3, OUTRO
CHORUS
PART C
PART E
CHORUS 3
PART C
PART E
OUTRO
OUTRO 2
4 groovesBCEMFill into the next barFill that ends a sectionInto the next partStop / hitRest
GROOVE · 8
FILL · 4
LAND · 4
RUN · 2
JOIN · 5
LINK · 4
SECTION · 2
WHOLE SONG · 1
ABOUT THIS DRUM PART

How to play Downer on drums

86 bars at 184 BPM -- fast, and 1:52 of it without a break -- on crash, ride, hi-hat, snare, high tom and kick.

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

TEMPO
184 BPM
TIME
4/4
BARS
86
LENGTH
1:52
DIFFICULTY
61/100

snare through bar 1 and hi-hat through bars 2-86.

The beat

The beat the song is built on is one bar, played through bars 2-9, 18-21 and 30-33, and 4 more places -- 37.2% of every bar the kit plays. Learn that one and most of the song is already under your hands.

    19
    1e+a2e+a3e+a4e+a
CC |----------x-x-x-|
HH |o---o---o-------|
SD |----x-----x-x-x-|
BD |x-x---x-x-------|
Downer -- the groove · x hit · o open hi-hat · g ghost note · r cross-stick · X accent

The fills

4 fills to learn, played 5 times: bars 17, 37, 41, 73 and 77.

What the course does

It cuts the song into 25 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 -- B -- 2 exercises, about 18 minutes.
  2. The grooves the song is built on -- C -- 4 exercises, about 27 minutes.
  3. The grooves the song is built on -- E -- 5 exercises, about 34 minutes.
  4. Through Part E and the Chorus 3 -- 2 exercises, about 18 minutes.
  5. Through the Chorus 3 -- 2 exercises, about 28 minutes. Open above.
  6. Through the Chorus 3 -- 6 exercises, about 28 minutes.
  7. Bars 42-74 -- 5 exercises, about 20 minutes.
  8. Through the Outro and the Outro 2 -- 3 exercises, about 23 minutes.
  9. and 1 more sittings after that.
START THE COURSE ↑

Questions

What BPM is Downer?

184 BPM, in 4/4, with the time kept in sixteenth notes. At that speed the sixteenth notes are the whole difficulty, so the room will take it down to a quarter of it and climb back.

Is Downer hard to play on drums?

61 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 44 out of 100; the rest of the number is everything around it.

How long is the drum part?

86 bars, about 1:52 at the written tempo. The course breaks it into 25 exercises over 9 sittings, about 23 minutes each.

What do I need on the kit?

crash, ride, hi-hat, snare, high 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 Downer?

4 fills to learn, played 5 times: bars 17, 37, 41, 73 and 77.

READ OFF THE SCORE ITSELF · 86 BARS ANALYSED