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Highway Star · Deep Purple

EXERCISE 31 OF 65
Join Part P to Chorus 4 (bars 115-117)
219 / 258 BARS COVERED
0 / 65 PASSED · 3 BARS LIT · IN THE PART P, CHORUS 4
PART A
CHORUS
CHORUS 2
PART P
CHORUS 4
CHORUS 5
PART P
PART AG
CHORUS 7
7 groovesDPJAAG+2Fill into the next barFill that ends a sectionInto the next partStop / hitRest
GROOVE · 8
FILL · 15
LAND · 15
RUN · 2
JOIN · 10
LINK · 7
SECTION · 7
WHOLE SONG · 1
ABOUT THIS DRUM PART

How to play Highway Star on drums

258 bars at 171 BPM -- fast, and 6:02 of it without a break -- on crash, ride, hi-hat, snare, high tom, mid tom, floor tom, kick and hi-hat foot.

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

TEMPO
171 BPM
TIME
4/4
BARS
258
LENGTH
6:02
DIFFICULTY
65/100

snare through bars 1-24, hi-hat through bars 25-82, toms through bars 83-84, ride through bars 85-116, hi-hat through bars 117-160 and toms through bars 161-162, and 4 more changes after that.

The beat

The beat the song is built on is one bar, played through bars 25-27, 29-31 and 33-35, and 20 more places -- 23.4% of every bar the kit plays. This one moves around more than most: the beat is where to start, not the whole job.

    27
    1e+a2e+a3e+a4e+a
HH |o---o---o---o---|
SD |----x-------x---|
BD |x-------x-x-----|
Highway Star -- the groove · x hit · o open hi-hat · g ghost note · r cross-stick · X accent

The fills

15 fills to learn, played 28 times: bars 23, 32, 36, 53, 66, 83 and 22 more.

What the course does

It cuts the song into 49 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 -- D, P -- 2 exercises, about 26 minutes.
  2. The grooves the song is built on -- J -- 3 exercises, about 30 minutes.
  3. Through Part A and the Chorus -- 9 exercises, about 31 minutes.
  4. Bars 42-54 -- 5 exercises, about 29 minutes.
  5. Bars 51-88 -- 5 exercises, about 30 minutes.
  6. Through Part P and the Chorus 4 -- 6 exercises, about 32 minutes.
  7. Bars 113-134 -- 7 exercises, about 29 minutes. Open above.
  8. Bars 144-175 -- 8 exercises, about 27 minutes.
  9. and 4 more sittings after that.
START THE COURSE ↑

Questions

What BPM is Highway Star?

171 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 Highway Star hard to play on drums?

65 out of 100: demanding, mostly on the independence between the hands and the feet. The beat itself is 42 out of 100; the rest of the number is everything around it.

How long is the drum part?

258 bars, about 6:02 at the written tempo. The course breaks it into 49 exercises over 12 sittings, about 28 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 Highway Star?

15 fills to learn, played 28 times: bars 23, 32, 36, 53, 66, 83 and 22 more.

READ OFF THE SCORE ITSELF · 258 BARS ANALYSED