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Funky Drummer · James Brown

EXERCISE 3 OF 59
Groove AB -- Part AB
79 / 227 BARS COVERED
0 / 59 PASSED · 40 BARS LIT · IN THE PART AB, OUTRO 2
PART E
PART P
CHORUS
PART AB
PART AB
PART AB
PART AB
OUTRO 2
15 groovesAAABEPJ+10Fill into the next barFill that ends a sectionInto the next partStop / hitRest
GROOVE · 16
FILL · 1
LAND · 1
RUN · 3
JOIN · 19
LINK · 4
SECTION · 14
WHOLE SONG · 1
ABOUT THIS DRUM PART

How to play Funky Drummer on drums

227 bars of 4/4 at a walking 96 BPM, 9:24 of playing, on ride, hi-hat, snare, mid tom, kick and hi-hat foot.

62 out of 100, a step up from a first song, and the work is in how much of it falls off the beat.

TEMPO
96 BPM
TIME
4/4
BARS
227
LENGTH
9:24
DIFFICULTY
62/100

snare through bars 1-2, hi-hat through bars 3-56, ride through bars 57-60, hi-hat through bars 61-100, snare through bars 101-220 and hi-hat through bars 221-227.

The beat

The beat the song is built on is one bar, played through bars 101-160, 165-172 and 185-186, and 3 more places -- 34.8% of every bar the kit plays. That is the spine of it; everything else is what happens around it.

    101
    1e+a2e+a3e+a4e+a
SD |----x--x-x--x--x|
BD |x-x-------x--x--|
HF |xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx|
Funky Drummer -- the groove · x hit · o open hi-hat · g ghost note · r cross-stick · X accent

The fills

1 fill to learn, played 7 times: bars 221, 222, 223, 224, 225, 226 and 1 more.

What the course does

It cuts the song into 57 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 -- AA -- 2 exercises, about 19 minutes.
  2. The grooves the song is built on -- AB -- 2 exercises, about 17 minutes. Open above.
  3. The grooves the song is built on -- E -- 2 exercises, about 30 minutes.
  4. Through Part C and Part D -- 4 exercises, about 26 minutes.
  5. Bars 7-13 -- 2 exercises, about 23 minutes.
  6. Through Part E and Part J -- 3 exercises, about 28 minutes.
  7. Bars 17-45 -- 4 exercises, about 30 minutes.
  8. Through Part K and Part E -- 3 exercises, about 13 minutes.
  9. and 10 more sittings after that.
START THE COURSE ↑

Questions

What BPM is Funky Drummer?

96 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 Funky Drummer hard to play on drums?

62 out of 100, a step up from a first song, and the work is in how much of it falls off the beat. The beat itself is 47 out of 100; the rest of the number is everything around it.

How long is the drum part?

227 bars, about 9:24 at the written tempo. The course breaks it into 57 exercises over 18 sittings, about 26 minutes each.

What do I need on the kit?

ride, hi-hat, snare, mid 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 Funky Drummer?

1 fill to learn, played 7 times: bars 221, 222, 223, 224, 225, 226 and 1 more.

READ OFF THE SCORE ITSELF · 227 BARS ANALYSED