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I Played the Fool · Michael Stipe

I Played the Fool · Michael Stipe
EXERCISE 1 OF 26
Groove C -- Chorus
0 / 89 BARS COVERED
0 / 26 PASSED · 29 BARS LIT · IN THE CHORUS, CHORUS 2, CHORUS 3
PART A
CHORUS
PART B
CHORUS 2
CHORUS 3
PART G
PART I
OUTRO
9 groovesCGBIA+4Fill into the next barFill that ends a sectionInto the next partStop / hitRest
GROOVE · 5
FILL · 3
LAND · 3
RUN · 2
JOIN · 7
SECTION · 5
WHOLE SONG · 1
ABOUT THIS DRUM PART

How to play I Played the Fool on drums

89 bars of 4/4 at 122 BPM, about 2:55 of playing, on crash, hi-hat, snare, mid tom, floor tom and kick.

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

TEMPO
122 BPM
TIME
4/4
BARS
89
LENGTH
2:55
DIFFICULTY
53/100

kick and crashes through bars 1-5, silence through bars 6-9, hi-hat through bars 10-53, silence through bars 54-57, hi-hat through bars 58-70 and snare through bars 71-89.

The beat

The beat the song is built on is one bar, played through bars 10-25, 36-40 and 46-53 -- 35.4% of every bar the kit plays. Learn that one and most of the song is already under your hands.

    10
    1.....2.....3.....4.....
HH |x-----x-----x-----x-----|
SD |------x-----------x-----|
BD |x-----------x-----------|
I Played the Fool -- the groove · x hit · o open hi-hat · g ghost note · r cross-stick · X accent

The fills

3 fills to learn, played 4 times: bars 65, 81, 88 and 89.

What the course does

It cuts the song into 22 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 -- C -- 2 exercises, about 18 minutes.
  2. The grooves the song is built on -- G, E -- 2 exercises, about 29 minutes.
  3. Bars 24-58 -- 4 exercises, about 30 minutes.
  4. Bars 34-64 -- 6 exercises, about 28 minutes.
  5. Through Part G and Part I -- 6 exercises, about 29 minutes.
  6. The whole song -- 6 exercises, about 29 minutes.
START THE COURSE ↑

Questions

What BPM is I Played the Fool?

122 BPM, in 4/4, with the time kept in thirty-second 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 I Played the Fool hard to play on drums?

53 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 43 out of 100; the rest of the number is everything around it.

How long is the drum part?

89 bars, about 2:55 at the written tempo. The course breaks it into 22 exercises over 6 sittings, about 27 minutes each.

What do I need on the kit?

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

How many fills are in I Played the Fool?

3 fills to learn, played 4 times: bars 65, 81, 88 and 89.

READ OFF THE SCORE ITSELF · 89 BARS ANALYSED