← SONGS

God Smack · Alice in Chains

EXERCISE 1 OF 22
Groove B -- Chorus (a two-bar phrase)
0 / 118 BARS COVERED
0 / 22 PASSED · 42 BARS LIT · IN THE CHORUS, CHORUS 2, CHORUS 3
COUNT-IN
CHORUS
PART E
PART K
CHORUS 2
PART E
PART K
CHORUS 3
OUTRO
OUTRO 2
4 groovesBKES1Fill into the next barFill that ends a sectionInto the next partStop / hitRest
GROOVE · 6
FILL · 3
LAND · 3
RUN · 1
JOIN · 3
LINK · 3
SECTION · 2
WHOLE SONG · 1
ABOUT THIS DRUM PART

How to play God Smack on drums

118 bars of 4/4 at 125 BPM, about 3:47 of playing, on crash, ride, hi-hat, snare, high tom, mid tom, floor tom, kick and hi-hat foot.

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

TEMPO
125 BPM
TIME
4/4
BARS
118
LENGTH
3:47
DIFFICULTY
60/100

silence through bars 1-8, hi-hat through bars 9-24, ride through bars 25-42, hi-hat through bars 43-58, ride through bars 59-76 and hi-hat through bars 77-92, and 1 more change after that.

The beat

The beat the song is built on is a 2-bar phrase, played through bars 9-15, 17-23 and 43-49, and 3 more places -- 38.2% of every bar the kit plays. Learn that one and most of the song is already under your hands.

    9                10
    1e+a2e+a3e+a4e+a 1e+a2e+a3e+a4e+a
HH |x---x---x---x-o-|----x---x---x---|
SD |----x-------x---|----x-------x---|
BD |x-x---x-x-x---X-|--x---x-x-x-----|
HF |----------------|x---------------|
God Smack -- the groove · x hit · o open hi-hat · g ghost note · r cross-stick · X accent

The fills

3 fills to learn, played 11 times: bars 16, 24, 28, 34, 50, 58 and 5 more.

What the course does

It cuts the song into 18 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 -- B, K -- 2 exercises, about 27 minutes.
  2. Through the Chorus -- 4 exercises, about 22 minutes.
  3. Through the Chorus and Part E -- 5 exercises, about 30 minutes.
  4. Through Part E and Part K -- 6 exercises, about 35 minutes.
  5. Through Part K and the Chorus 2 -- 3 exercises, about 28 minutes.
  6. The whole song -- 2 exercises, about 14 minutes.
START THE COURSE ↑

Questions

What BPM is God Smack?

125 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 God Smack hard to play on drums?

60 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 38 out of 100; the rest of the number is everything around it.

How long is the drum part?

118 bars, about 3:47 at the written tempo. The course breaks it into 18 exercises over 6 sittings, about 26 minutes each.

What do I need on the kit?

crash, ride, hi-hat, snare, high tom, mid 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 God Smack?

3 fills to learn, played 11 times: bars 16, 24, 28, 34, 50, 58 and 5 more.

READ OFF THE SCORE ITSELF · 118 BARS ANALYSED