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Gentle Thoughts · Herbie Hancock

EXERCISE 1 OF 37
Groove A -- Part A
0 / 186 BARS COVERED
0 / 37 PASSED · 72 BARS LIT · IN THE PART A, CHORUS 5
PART A
PART A
CHORUS 2
PART A
CHORUS 3
PART A
PART L
CHORUS 5
PART A
CHORUS 6
OUTRO 2
5 groovesCALGKFill into the next barFill that ends a sectionInto the next partStop / hitRest
GROOVE · 9
FILL · 4
LAND · 4
RUN · 3
JOIN · 8
LINK · 3
SECTION · 5
WHOLE SONG · 1
ABOUT THIS DRUM PART

How to play Gentle Thoughts on drums

186 bars of 4/4 at a walking 105 BPM, 7:05 of playing, on crash, hi-hat, snare, mid tom, floor tom and kick.

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

TEMPO
105 BPM
TIME
4/4
BARS
186
LENGTH
7:05
DIFFICULTY
58/100

The time is kept on the hi-hat the whole way through.

The beat

The beat the song is built on is one bar, played through bars 1-32, 34-40 and 45-48, and 4 more places -- 38.7% of every bar the kit plays. Learn that one and most of the song is already under your hands.

    34
    1e+a2e+a3e+a4e+a
HH |x-x-x-x-x-o-x-x-|
SD |----x-------x---|
BD |x-x--x--x-------|
Gentle Thoughts -- the groove · x hit · o open hi-hat · g ghost note · r cross-stick · X accent

The fills

4 fills to learn, played 6 times: bars 72, 138, 139, 151, 159 and 167.

What the course does

It cuts the song into 32 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 -- A -- 2 exercises, about 18 minutes. Open above.
  2. The grooves the song is built on -- C -- 4 exercises, about 29 minutes.
  3. Bars 60-73 -- 3 exercises, about 20 minutes.
  4. Through Part G and Part A -- 2 exercises, about 20 minutes.
  5. Through Part A -- 2 exercises, about 20 minutes.
  6. Through Part A and the Chorus 4 -- 3 exercises, about 27 minutes.
  7. Through the Chorus 4 and Part K -- 3 exercises, about 22 minutes.
  8. Bars 99-177 -- 6 exercises, about 35 minutes.
  9. and 3 more sittings after that.
START THE COURSE ↑

Questions

What BPM is Gentle Thoughts?

105 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 Gentle Thoughts hard to play on drums?

58 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 41 out of 100; the rest of the number is everything around it.

How long is the drum part?

186 bars, about 7:05 at the written tempo. The course breaks it into 32 exercises over 11 sittings, about 23 minutes each.

What do I need on the kit?

crash, 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 Gentle Thoughts?

4 fills to learn, played 6 times: bars 72, 138, 139, 151, 159 and 167.

READ OFF THE SCORE ITSELF · 186 BARS ANALYSED