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First Day Of My Life · Melanie C

EXERCISE 16 OF 32
5-bar fill at bar 39
37 / 73 BARS COVERED
0 / 32 PASSED · 5 BARS LIT · IN THE CHORUS 2
COUNT-IN
CHORUS
PART G
PART S4
PART I
CHORUS 2
PART S7
OUTRO
OUTRO 2
7 groovesCGS1S7I+2Fill into the next barFill that ends a sectionInto the next partStop / hitRest
GROOVE · 7
FILL · 6
LAND · 6
RUN · 2
JOIN · 4
LINK · 1
SECTION · 5
WHOLE SONG · 1
ABOUT THIS DRUM PART

How to play First Day Of My Life on drums

73 bars, 3:54, at 74 BPM: slow enough that every note is exposed. Crash, ride, hi-hat, snare, mid tom, floor tom and kick and nothing else.

44 out of 100 -- a fair first song -- with the independence between the hands and the feet the part that decides it.

TEMPO
74 BPM
TIME
4/4
BARS
73
LENGTH
3:54
DIFFICULTY
44/100

silence through bars 1-13, hi-hat through bars 14-24, silence through bars 25-27, hi-hat through bars 28-43, ride through bars 44-47 and hi-hat through bars 48-49, and 5 more changes after that.

The beat

The beat the song is built on is one bar, played through bars 14-16, 29 and 35-38 -- 14.5% of every bar the kit plays. This one moves around more than most: the beat is where to start, not the whole job.

    15
    1e+a2e+a3e+a4e+a
HH |x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-|
SD |----x-------x---|
BD |x-------x-------|
First Day Of My Life -- the groove · x hit · o open hi-hat · g ghost note · r cross-stick · X accent

The fills

6 fills to learn, played 19 times: bars 17, 23, 39, 40, 41, 42 and 13 more.

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 -- C, G -- 2 exercises, about 23 minutes.
  2. The grooves the song is built on -- I -- 4 exercises, about 30 minutes.
  3. Bars 15-24 -- 5 exercises, about 30 minutes.
  4. Bars 22-44 -- 4 exercises, about 27 minutes.
  5. Through the Chorus 2 and Part S7 -- 6 exercises, about 31 minutes. Open above.
  6. Bars 48-65 -- 6 exercises, about 30 minutes.
  7. The whole song -- 5 exercises, about 26 minutes.
START THE COURSE ↑

Questions

What BPM is First Day Of My Life?

74 BPM, in 4/4, with the time kept in sixteenth notes. Slow enough to hear every mistake, which is why the room lets you sit at the written tempo rather than under it.

Is First Day Of My Life hard to play on drums?

44 out of 100 -- a fair first song -- with the independence between the hands and the feet the part that decides it. The beat itself is 26 out of 100; the rest of the number is everything around it.

How long is the drum part?

73 bars, about 3:54 at the written tempo. The course breaks it into 25 exercises over 7 sittings, about 28 minutes each.

What do I need on the kit?

crash, ride, hi-hat, snare, 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 First Day Of My Life?

6 fills to learn, played 19 times: bars 17, 23, 39, 40, 41, 42 and 13 more.

READ OFF THE SCORE ITSELF · 73 BARS ANALYSED