ABOUT THIS DRUM PART

How to play High Water on drums

109 bars of 4/4 at 122 BPM, about 3:34 of playing, on crash, ride, hi-hat, snare, high tom, mid tom, floor tom, kick and hi-hat foot.

69 out of 100: demanding, mostly on the independence between the hands and the feet.

TEMPO: 122 BPM
TIME: 4/4
BARS: 109
LENGTH: 3:34
DIFFICULTY: 69/100

silence through bars 1-4, snare through bars 5-12, hi-hat through bars 13-20, ride through bars 21-25, silence through bars 26-28 and toms through bars 29-45, and 6 more changes after that.

The beat

The beat the song is built on is a 2-bar phrase, played through bars 29-30, 33-34 and 37-38, and 1 more place -- 9.2% of every bar the kit plays. This one moves around more than most: the beat is where to start, not the whole job.

    29                                               30
    1...........2...........3...........4........... 1...........2...........3...........4...........
CC |x--------x--x-----------x-----------x-----------|x-----------x-----------x-----------x-----------|
SD |------------------------X-----------------------|------------------------X--------------X--------|
T2 |---------------------------------------x--x-----|---x--x-----------------------x--x--------------|
FT |------------------------------------------------|---------------x--x-----------------------x--x--|
BD |x--------x--------x--------------x-----------x--|---------x-----------x--------------------------|

High Water -- the groove · x hit · o open hi-hat · g ghost note · r cross-stick · X accent

The fills

13 fills to learn, played 27 times: bars 8, 12, 20, 24, 29, 30 and 21 more.

What the course does

It cuts the song into 47 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.

The grooves the song is built on -- N -- 3 exercises, about 23 minutes.
Through Part N and the Chorus -- 3 exercises, about 17 minutes.
The grooves the song is built on -- AF (a two-bar phrase), C -- 2 exercises, about 27 minutes.
Through Part C -- 3 exercises, about 21 minutes. Open above.
Through Part C -- 4 exercises, about 32 minutes.
Through Part C and Part G -- 4 exercises, about 29 minutes.
Bars 13-25 -- 5 exercises, about 23 minutes.
Bars 25-45 -- 6 exercises, about 28 minutes.
and 8 more sittings after that.

START THE COURSE ↑

Questions

What BPM is High Water?

122 BPM, in 4/4, with the time kept in thirty-second 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 High Water hard to play on drums?

69 out of 100: demanding, mostly on the independence between the hands and the feet. The beat itself is 56 out of 100; the rest of the number is everything around it.

How long is the drum part?

109 bars, about 3:34 at the written tempo. The course breaks it into 47 exercises over 16 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 High Water?

13 fills to learn, played 27 times: bars 8, 12, 20, 24, 29, 30 and 21 more.

READ OFF THE SCORE ITSELF · 109 BARS ANALYSED