Goodbye Yellow Brick Road · Elton John

50 bars, 3:12, at 60 BPM: slow enough that every note is exposed. Crash, ride, hi-hat, snare, high tom, mid tom, floor tom and kick and nothing else.

RockJazz / BluesUnder 90 BPM
TEMPO
60 BPM
TIME
4/4
BARS
50
LENGTH
3:12
DIFFICULTY
34/100
THE BEAT

One bar, and 42% of the song

The beat the song is built on is one bar, played through bars 11-12, 14-16 and 18, and 7 more places -- 41.5% of every bar the kit plays. Learn that one and most of the song is already under your hands.

LOOP · 60 BPM
GOODBYE YELLOW BRICK ROAD · BAR 11
THE FILLS

Where it comes off the beat

9 fills to learn, played 15 times: bars 10, 13, 17, 19, 20, 22 and 9 more.

LOOP · 60 BPM
BAR 10 · LANDS ON BAR 11
LOOP · 60 BPM
BAR 13 · LANDS ON BAR 14
LOOP · 60 BPM
BAR 17 · LANDS ON BAR 18 · PLAYED 3 TIMES

6 more fills are written out on the fills page.

THE SHAPE

How the song is built

50 bars across 4 sections: 23 keep time, 15 are fills, 2 are stops and 9 are silent. The longest unbroken stretch of time is bars 27-33.

COUNT-IN
CHORUS
OUTRO
OUTRO 2
3 groovesCJS1Fill into the next barFill that ends a sectionInto the next partStop / hitRest

Questions

What BPM is Goodbye Yellow Brick Road?

60 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 Goodbye Yellow Brick Road hard to play on drums?

34 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 19 out of 100; the rest of the number is everything around it.

How long is the drum part?

50 bars, about 3:12 at the written tempo. The course breaks it into 18 exercises over 4 sittings, about 27 minutes each.

What do I need on the kit?

crash, ride, hi-hat, snare, high tom, 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 Goodbye Yellow Brick Road?

9 fills to learn, played 15 times: bars 10, 13, 17, 19, 20, 22 and 9 more.

READ OFF THE SCORE ITSELF · 50 BARS ANALYSED
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