ABOUT THIS DRUM PART

How to play Fantasy on drums

100 bars of 4/4 at a walking 80 BPM, 4:59 of playing, on crash, ride, hi-hat, snare, kick and hi-hat foot.

90 out of 100. Hard, and what makes it hard is how much of it falls off the beat.

TEMPO: 80 BPM
TIME: 4/4
BARS: 100
LENGTH: 4:59
DIFFICULTY: 90/100

ride through bars 2-5, hi-hat through bars 6-55, ride through bars 56-59, hi-hat through bars 60-68, silence through bars 69-75 and hi-hat through bars 76-100.

The beat

The beat the song is built on is a 2-bar phrase, played through bars 15-17, 19-22 and 35-37, and 3 more places -- 19.1% of every bar the kit plays. This one moves around more than most: the beat is where to start, not the whole job.

    15                                                               16
    1...............2...............3...............4............... 1...............2...............3...............4...............
HH |x-------x---x---x-------x---x---x-------x---x---x-------o---x---|x-------x---x---x-------x---x---x-------x---x---o---x---o---x---|
SD |x---x-------x---r-----------x---x---x-------x---r---x---x---x---|x---x-------x---r-----------x---x---x-------x---r---x---x---x---|
BD |x---------------------------x---x-------------------------------|x---------------------------x---x-------------------------------|
HF |----x---------------x---------------x---------------x-----------|----x---------------x---------------x---------------------------|

Fantasy -- the groove · x hit · o open hi-hat · g ghost note · r cross-stick · X accent

The fills

There are no fills to speak of: the part holds one beat the whole way through.

What the course does

It cuts the song into 26 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.

The grooves the song is built on -- F -- 1 exercise, about 20 minutes. Open above.
The grooves the song is built on -- N -- 1 exercise, about 19 minutes.
The grooves the song is built on -- I -- 1 exercise, about 19 minutes.
Through Part B and Part E -- 3 exercises, about 30 minutes.
Through Part E and Part F -- 3 exercises, about 29 minutes.
Bars 11-26 -- 3 exercises, about 15 minutes.
Through Part I and Part F -- 4 exercises, about 34 minutes.
Bars 54-62 -- 3 exercises, about 14 minutes.
and 3 more sittings after that.

START THE COURSE ↑

Questions

What BPM is Fantasy?

80 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 Fantasy hard to play on drums?

90 out of 100. Hard, and what makes it hard is how much of it falls off the beat. The beat itself is 81 out of 100; the rest of the number is everything around it.

How long is the drum part?

100 bars, about 4:59 at the written tempo. The course breaks it into 26 exercises over 11 sittings, about 23 minutes each.

What do I need on the kit?

crash, ride, hi-hat, snare, kick and hi-hat foot. That is most of a full kit; the part moves around it rather than sitting in one place.

READ OFF THE SCORE ITSELF · 100 BARS ANALYSED