ABOUT THIS DRUM PART

How to play It Never Happened on drums

74 bars of 6/4 -- not four -- at 160 BPM, 2:13 of playing on crash, ride, hi-hat, snare, high tom, mid tom, floor tom, kick and hi-hat foot.

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

TEMPO: 160 BPM
TIME: 6/4
BARS: 74
LENGTH: 2:13
DIFFICULTY: 72/100

silence through bars 1-3, ride through bars 4-16, snare through bars 17-29, hi-hat through bars 30-38, silence through bars 39-43 and ride through bars 44-47, and 8 more changes after that.

The beat

The beat the song is built on is a 2-bar phrase, played through bars 30-32 and 34-36 -- 11.1% of every bar the kit plays. This one moves around more than most: the beat is where to start, not the whole job.

    30                                               31
    1.......2.......3.......4.......5.......6....... 1.......2...
CC |x-----------------------------------------------|------------|
HH |----o---o---o---o---o---o---o---o---o---o---o---|--x-x-x-----|
SD |------------x-----------x---------------x-------|f-----------|
BD |x-x---x-x-----x---x-x-----x---x-x---x-x---x-x---|--x-x-------|

It Never Happened -- the groove · x hit · o open hi-hat · g ghost note · r cross-stick · X accent

The fills

6 fills to learn, played 15 times: bars 17, 24, 25, 27, 28, 29 and 9 more.

What the course does

It cuts the song into 27 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.

The grooves the song is built on -- Q -- 1 exercise, about 21 minutes.
The grooves the song is built on -- AA -- 1 exercise, about 14 minutes.
The grooves the song is built on -- K -- 4 exercises, about 30 minutes. Open above.
Through the Chorus -- 3 exercises, about 23 minutes.
Through the Chorus and Part Q -- 6 exercises, about 30 minutes.
Bars 25-38 -- 6 exercises, about 27 minutes.
Through Part V -- 4 exercises, about 26 minutes.
Through Part V and the Outro -- 4 exercises, about 27 minutes.
and 1 more sittings after that.

START THE COURSE ↑

Questions

What BPM is It Never Happened?

160 BPM, in 6/4, with the time kept in thirty-second notes. At that speed the thirty-second notes are the whole difficulty, so the room will take it down to a quarter of it and climb back.

Is It Never Happened hard to play on drums?

72 out of 100: demanding, mostly on the independence between the hands and the feet. The beat itself is 89 out of 100; the rest of the number is everything around it.

How long is the drum part?

74 bars, about 2:13 at the written tempo. The course breaks it into 27 exercises over 9 sittings, about 25 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 It Never Happened?

6 fills to learn, played 15 times: bars 17, 24, 25, 27, 28, 29 and 9 more.

READ OFF THE SCORE ITSELF · 74 BARS ANALYSED