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Higher Ground · Dave Weckl & Jay Oliver

Higher Ground · Dave Weckl & Jay Oliver
EXERCISE 20 OF 72
Join Part G to Part O (bars 29-31)
63 / 229 BARS COVERED
0 / 72 PASSED · 3 BARS LIT · IN THE PART G, PART O
PART G
PART O
CHORUS
PART BV
PART CC
OUTRO
BREAK 2
15 groovesXS16CLGCC+10Fill into the next barFill that ends a sectionInto the next partStop / hitRest
GROOVE · 17
FILL · 10
LAND · 10
RUN · 4
JOIN · 14
LINK · 4
SECTION · 12
WHOLE SONG · 1
ABOUT THIS DRUM PART

How to play Higher Ground on drums

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.

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

TEMPO
187 BPM
TIME
4/4
BARS
229
LENGTH
5:47
DIFFICULTY
48/100

toms through bar 1, kick and crashes through bars 2-3, silence through bars 4-6, ride through bars 7-10, hi-hat through bars 11-26 and snare through bars 27-30, and 13 more changes after that.

The beat

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.

    163
    1e+a2e+a3e+a4e+a
HH |x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-|
SD |----x-------x---|
BD |x-----x-x-------|
Higher Ground -- the groove · x hit · o open hi-hat · g ghost note · r cross-stick · X accent

The fills

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

What the course does

It cuts the song into 61 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 -- CL, G -- 3 exercises, about 30 minutes.
  2. The grooves the song is built on -- BV -- 3 exercises, about 29 minutes.
  3. Bars 1-23 -- 9 exercises, about 29 minutes.
  4. Through Part G and Part O -- 4 exercises, about 28 minutes.
  5. Bars 29-40 -- 5 exercises, about 26 minutes. Open above.
  6. Through Part P and Part Q -- 5 exercises, about 28 minutes.
  7. Through Part Q and Part W -- 4 exercises, about 25 minutes.
  8. Through Part W and the Chorus -- 5 exercises, about 28 minutes.
  9. and 10 more sittings after that.
START THE COURSE ↑

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