Higher Ground · Dave Weckl & Jay Oliver

229 bars at 187 BPM -- fast, and 5:47 of it without a break -- on crash, ride, hi-hat, snare, high tom, mid tom, floor tom, kick and hi-hat foot.

150 BPM and up
TEMPO
187 BPM
TIME
4/4
BARS
229
LENGTH
5:47
DIFFICULTY
48/100
THE BEAT

One bar, and 11% of the song

The beat the song is built on is one bar, played through bars 163-183 -- 11.3% of every bar the kit plays. This one moves around more than most: the beat is where to start, not the whole job.

LOOP · 187 BPM
HIGHER GROUND · BAR 163
THE BEAT, WRITTEN OUT →
THE FILLS

Where it comes off the beat

10 fills to learn, played 61 times: bars 1, 6, 22, 26, 27, 28 and 55 more.

LOOP · 187 BPM
BAR 1 · LANDS ON BAR 2
LOOP · 187 BPM
BAR 6 · LANDS ON BAR 7
LOOP · 187 BPM
BAR 22 · LANDS ON BAR 23
LOOP · 187 BPM
BARS 26-30 · LANDS ON BAR 31 · PLAYED 5 TIMES

6 more fills are written out on the fills page.

EVERY FILL, WRITTEN OUT →
THE SHAPE

How the song is built

229 bars across 16 sections: 103 keep time, 61 are fills, 6 are stops and 43 are silent. The longest unbroken stretch of time is bars 164-183.

PART G
CHORUS
PART BV
PART CC
OUTRO
BREAK 2
15 groovesXS16CLGCC+10Fill into the next barFill that ends a sectionInto the next partStop / hitRest

Questions

What BPM is Higher Ground?

187 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 Higher Ground hard to play on drums?

48 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 48 out of 100; the rest of the number is everything around it.

How long is the drum part?

229 bars, about 5:47 at the written tempo. The course breaks it into 61 exercises over 18 sittings, about 27 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 Higher Ground?

10 fills to learn, played 61 times: bars 1, 6, 22, 26, 27, 28 and 55 more.

READ OFF THE SCORE ITSELF · 229 BARS ANALYSED
AT THIS LEVEL

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