← SONGS

Hold On · Alabama Shakes

EXERCISE 4 OF 12
Groove E
57 / 83 BARS COVERED
0 / 12 PASSED · 5 BARS LIT · IN THE CHORUS, PART H, CHORUS 2
CHORUS
PART H
CHORUS 2
PART H
OUTRO
4 groovesAHS5LFill into the next barFill that ends a sectionInto the next partStop / hitRest
GROOVE · 5
RUN · 1
JOIN · 3
SECTION · 2
WHOLE SONG · 1
ABOUT THIS DRUM PART

How to play Hold On on drums

83 bars of 4/4 at a walking 84 BPM, 3:57 of playing, on crash, hi-hat, snare, high tom, mid 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
84 BPM
TIME
4/4
BARS
83
LENGTH
3:57
DIFFICULTY
48/100

hi-hat through bars 1-75 and silence through bars 76-83.

The beat

The beat the song is built on is one bar, played through bars 1-25, 27-40 and 51-64 -- 69.7% of every bar the kit plays. Learn that one and the song is very nearly finished.

    2
    1e+a2e+a3e+a4e+a
HH |x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-|
SD |----x-------x---|
BD |x-----x-x-------|
Hold On -- the groove · x hit · o open hi-hat · g ghost note · r cross-stick · X accent

The fills

There are no fills to speak of: the part holds one beat the whole way through.

What the course does

It cuts the song into 11 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 -- A -- 3 exercises, about 29 minutes.
  2. Through the Chorus and Part H -- 2 exercises, about 24 minutes. Open above.
  3. Bars 42-68 -- 4 exercises, about 29 minutes.
  4. The whole song -- 3 exercises, about 19 minutes.
START THE COURSE ↑

Questions

What BPM is Hold On?

84 BPM, in 4/4, with the time kept in sixteenth 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 Hold On 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 24 out of 100; the rest of the number is everything around it.

How long is the drum part?

83 bars, about 3:57 at the written tempo. The course breaks it into 11 exercises over 4 sittings, about 25 minutes each.

What do I need on the kit?

crash, hi-hat, snare, high tom, mid tom, kick and hi-hat foot. That is most of a full kit; the part moves around it rather than sitting in one place.

READ OFF THE SCORE ITSELF · 83 BARS ANALYSED