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Hard Skool · Guns N' Roses

EXERCISE 28 OF 44
Fill at bar 111 (a small one)
136 / 152 BARS COVERED
0 / 44 PASSED · 1 BAR LIT · IN THE PART O
CHORUS
PART G
CHORUS 2
PART G
PART M
CHORUS 3
PART O
CHORUS 4
OUTRO
OUTRO 2
7 groovesCGOMT+2Fill into the next barFill that ends a sectionInto the next partStop / hitRest
GROOVE · 9
FILL · 5
LAND · 5
RUN · 2
JOIN · 9
LINK · 8
SECTION · 5
WHOLE SONG · 1
ABOUT THIS DRUM PART

How to play Hard Skool on drums

152 bars at 168 BPM -- fast, and 3:37 of it without a break -- on crash, ride, hi-hat, snare, high tom, mid tom, floor tom and kick.

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

TEMPO
168 BPM
TIME
4/4
BARS
152
LENGTH
3:37
DIFFICULTY
52/100

snare through bars 1-2, silence through bars 3-5, hi-hat through bars 6-29, ride through bars 30-45, hi-hat through bars 46-61 and ride through bars 62-77, and 9 more changes after that.

The beat

The beat the song is built on is a 2-bar phrase, played through bars 6-12, 14-28 and 46-60, and 5 more places -- 51.3% of every bar the kit plays. Learn that one and most of the song is already under your hands.

    6                7
    1e+a2e+a3e+a4e+a 1e+a2e+a3e+a4e+a
CC |x---------------|----------------|
HH |----o---o---o---|o---o---o---o---|
SD |----x-------x---|----x-------x---|
BD |x---------x---x-|--------x-x-----|
Hard Skool -- the groove · x hit · o open hi-hat · g ghost note · r cross-stick · X accent

The fills

5 fills to learn, played 9 times: bars 13, 37, 61, 69, 111, 118 and 3 more.

What the course does

It cuts the song into 38 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 -- 2 exercises, about 18 minutes.
  2. The grooves the song is built on -- G -- 5 exercises, about 27 minutes.
  3. Through the Chorus and Part G -- 3 exercises, about 30 minutes.
  4. Through Part G -- 3 exercises, about 31 minutes.
  5. Through Part G and the Chorus 2 -- 5 exercises, about 23 minutes.
  6. Through Part G and Part M -- 4 exercises, about 27 minutes.
  7. Bars 83-105 -- 5 exercises, about 30 minutes.
  8. Through Part O and the Chorus 4 -- 9 exercises, about 32 minutes. Open above.
  9. and 2 more sittings after that.
START THE COURSE ↑

Questions

What BPM is Hard Skool?

168 BPM, in 4/4, with the time kept in sixteenth notes. At that speed the sixteenth notes are the whole difficulty, so the room will take it down to a quarter of it and climb back.

Is Hard Skool hard to play on drums?

52 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 39 out of 100; the rest of the number is everything around it.

How long is the drum part?

152 bars, about 3:37 at the written tempo. The course breaks it into 38 exercises over 10 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 Hard Skool?

5 fills to learn, played 9 times: bars 13, 37, 61, 69, 111, 118 and 3 more.

READ OFF THE SCORE ITSELF · 152 BARS ANALYSED