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I Thank You · ZZ Top

EXERCISE 11 OF 31
Join Part A to Chorus (bars 3-5)
70 / 90 BARS COVERED
0 / 31 PASSED · 3 BARS LIT · IN THE PART A, CHORUS
PART A
CHORUS
CHORUS 2
PART L
OUTRO
OUTRO 2
4 groovesCLAFFill into the next barFill that ends a sectionInto the next partStop / hitRest
GROOVE · 4
FILL · 7
LAND · 7
RUN · 1
JOIN · 5
LINK · 2
SECTION · 4
WHOLE SONG · 1
ABOUT THIS DRUM PART

How to play I Thank You on drums

90 bars of 4/4 at 111 BPM, about 3:15 of playing, on crash, ride, hi-hat, snare, high tom, mid tom, floor tom, kick and hi-hat foot.

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

TEMPO
111 BPM
TIME
4/4
BARS
90
LENGTH
3:15
DIFFICULTY
64/100

hi-hat through bars 1-40, ride through bars 41-48, hi-hat through bars 49-64 and ride through bars 65-90.

The beat

The beat the song is built on is one bar, played through bars 5-7, 9-11 and 17-21, and 7 more places -- 41.1% of every bar the kit plays. Learn that one and most of the song is already under your hands.

    6
    1e+a2e+a3e+a4e+a
HH |x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-|
SD |----x-------x---|
BD |--x-----x-x---x-|
I Thank You -- the groove · x hit · o open hi-hat · g ghost note · r cross-stick · X accent

The fills

7 fills to learn, played 17 times: bars 4, 8, 12, 16, 22, 32 and 11 more.

What the course does

It cuts the song into 23 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 -- 4 exercises, about 24 minutes.
  2. The grooves the song is built on -- L -- 6 exercises, about 27 minutes.
  3. Bars 3-17 -- 5 exercises, about 29 minutes. Open above.
  4. Through Part F and the Chorus 2 -- 5 exercises, about 28 minutes.
  5. Bars 41-65 -- 8 exercises, about 29 minutes.
  6. The whole song -- 3 exercises, about 19 minutes.
START THE COURSE ↑

Questions

What BPM is I Thank You?

111 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 I Thank You hard to play on drums?

64 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 40 out of 100; the rest of the number is everything around it.

How long is the drum part?

90 bars, about 3:15 at the written tempo. The course breaks it into 23 exercises over 6 sittings, about 26 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 I Thank You?

7 fills to learn, played 17 times: bars 4, 8, 12, 16, 22, 32 and 11 more.

READ OFF THE SCORE ITSELF · 90 BARS ANALYSED