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Downstairs · twenty one pilots

EXERCISE 1 OF 39
Groove I -- Outro
0 / 128 BARS COVERED
0 / 39 PASSED · 28 BARS LIT
COUNT-IN
PART A
PART H
PART A
CHORUS
PART L
PART P
PART L
BREAK
PART K
BREAK 2
OUTRO
11 groovesIPALH+6Fill into the next barFill that ends a sectionInto the next partStop / hitRest
GROOVE · 11
FILL · 3
LAND · 3
RUN · 3
JOIN · 8
LINK · 3
SECTION · 7
WHOLE SONG · 1
ABOUT THIS DRUM PART

How to play Downstairs on drums

128 bars of 4/4 at 110 BPM, about 4:39 of playing, on crash, hi-hat, snare, high tom, floor tom, kick and hi-hat foot.

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

TEMPO
110 BPM
TIME
4/4
BARS
128
LENGTH
4:39
DIFFICULTY
52/100

silence through bars 1-18, snare through bars 19-20, hi-hat through bars 21-24, kick and crashes through bars 25-32, snare through bars 33-48 and hi-hat through bars 49-50, and 7 more changes after that.

The beat

The beat the song is built on is one bar, played through bars 33-35, 37-39 and 41, and 17 more places -- 28.3% of every bar the kit plays. That is the spine of it; everything else is what happens around it.

    41
    1...........2...........3...........4...........
CC |x-----------x-----------x-----------x-----------|
SD |------------------------X-----------------------|
BD |X-----------X-----------------------------x-----|
Downstairs -- the groove · x hit · o open hi-hat · g ghost note · r cross-stick · X accent

The fills

3 fills to learn, played 3 times: bars 56, 72 and 112.

What the course does

It cuts the song into 35 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, K -- 4 exercises, about 26 minutes.
  2. The grooves the song is built on -- P -- 4 exercises, about 27 minutes.
  3. Through Part B and Part H -- 3 exercises, about 29 minutes.
  4. Bars 21-39 -- 5 exercises, about 30 minutes.
  5. Bars 38-47 -- 4 exercises, about 27 minutes.
  6. Through Part L and Part P -- 8 exercises, about 34 minutes.
  7. Bars 79-96 -- 4 exercises, about 34 minutes.
  8. Bars 95-124 -- 4 exercises, about 28 minutes.
  9. and 1 more sittings after that.
START THE COURSE ↑

Questions

What BPM is Downstairs?

110 BPM, in 4/4, with the time kept in thirty-second 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 Downstairs hard to play on drums?

52 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 27 out of 100; the rest of the number is everything around it.

How long is the drum part?

128 bars, about 4:39 at the written tempo. The course breaks it into 35 exercises over 9 sittings, about 28 minutes each.

What do I need on the kit?

crash, hi-hat, snare, high 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 Downstairs?

3 fills to learn, played 3 times: bars 56, 72 and 112.

READ OFF THE SCORE ITSELF · 128 BARS ANALYSED