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Hold On · Tom Waits

Hold On · Tom Waits
EXERCISE 6 OF 13
Run E1 · Part E (bars 33-41)
48 / 106 BARS COVERED
0 / 13 PASSED · 9 BARS LIT · IN THE PART E
PART S3
CHORUS
PART E
PART F
PART G
BREAK 5
PART E
OUTRO
13 groovesBES3S13F+8Fill into the next barFill that ends a sectionInto the next partStop / hitRest
GROOVE · 2
FILL · 1
LAND · 1
RUN · 2
JOIN · 2
SECTION · 4
WHOLE SONG · 1
ABOUT THIS DRUM PART

How to play Hold On on drums

106 bars, 5:35, at 73 BPM: slow enough that every note is exposed. Crash, hi-hat, snare, kick and hi-hat foot and nothing else.

16 out of 100: straightforward, and the one thing to watch is the independence between the hands and the feet.

TEMPO
73 BPM
TIME
4/4
BARS
106
LENGTH
5:35
DIFFICULTY
16/100

silence through bars 1-3, kick and crashes through bars 4-7, silence through bars 8-23, hi-hat through bars 24-26, kick and crashes through bars 27-29 and silence through bars 30-32, and 15 more changes after that.

The beat

The beat the song is built on is one bar, played through bars 24-26, 33-41 and 54-56, and 3 more places -- 36.5% of every bar the kit plays. Learn that one and most of the song is already under your hands.

    24
    1e+a2e+a3e+a4e+a
HH |x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-|
SD |----x-------x---|
BD |x-------x-------|
Hold On -- the groove · x hit · o open hi-hat · g ghost note · r cross-stick · X accent

The fills

1 fill to learn, played 2 times: bars 78 and 79.

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 -- E, B -- 5 exercises, about 30 minutes.
  2. Bars 33-65 -- 5 exercises, about 22 minutes. Open above.
  3. The whole song -- 3 exercises, about 15 minutes.
START THE COURSE ↑

Questions

What BPM is Hold On?

73 BPM, in 4/4, with the time kept in sixteenth notes. Slow enough to hear every mistake, which is why the room lets you sit at the written tempo rather than under it.

Is Hold On hard to play on drums?

16 out of 100: straightforward, and the one thing to watch is 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?

106 bars, about 5:35 at the written tempo. The course breaks it into 11 exercises over 3 sittings, about 22 minutes each.

What do I need on the kit?

crash, hi-hat, snare, kick and hi-hat foot. Nothing in the part asks for anything else.

How many fills are in Hold On?

1 fill to learn, played 2 times: bars 78 and 79.

READ OFF THE SCORE ITSELF · 106 BARS ANALYSED