ABOUT THIS DRUM PART

How to play Jabberwocky on drums

174 bars at 166 BPM -- fast, and 4:26 of it without a break -- on crash, ride, hi-hat, snare, high tom, mid tom, floor tom, kick and hi-hat foot.

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

TEMPO: 166 BPM
TIME: 4/4
BARS: 174
LENGTH: 4:26
DIFFICULTY: 78/100

silence through bars 1-4, hi-hat through bars 5-19, snare through bars 20-21, toms through bars 22-28, hi-hat through bars 29-37 and snare through bars 38-39, and 16 more changes after that.

The beat

The beat the song is built on is a 2-bar phrase, played through bars 13-20 and 31-38 -- 11.6% of every bar the kit plays. This one moves around more than most: the beat is where to start, not the whole job.

    13                                                       14
    1...............2...............3...............4....... 1...............2...............3...............4.......
CC |x-------------------------------------------------------|--------x---------------x-------x-------x-------x-------|
HH |--------x-------o---------------x-------x-------o-------|--------------------------------------------------------|
SD |--------------------------------x-----------------------|x---x-----------x---x-------------------x-------x-------|
BD |x-------x-----------------------------------------------|--------x---------------x-------x-----------------------|

Jabberwocky -- the groove · x hit · o open hi-hat · g ghost note · r cross-stick · X accent

The fills

5 fills to learn, played 23 times: bars 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 28 and 17 more.

What the course does

It cuts the song into 50 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 -- E, AU -- 2 exercises, about 30 minutes.
The grooves the song is built on -- B -- 4 exercises, about 34 minutes.
Through the Chorus -- 3 exercises, about 26 minutes.
Through Part E and the Chorus -- 7 exercises, about 31 minutes.
Through the Chorus 2 and Part L -- 5 exercises, about 35 minutes. Open above.
Through Part L and Part Q -- 4 exercises, about 29 minutes.
Bars 55-64 -- 3 exercises, about 26 minutes.
Through Part Q and Part X -- 2 exercises, about 9 minutes.
and 7 more sittings after that.

START THE COURSE ↑

Questions

What BPM is Jabberwocky?

166 BPM, in 4/4, 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 Jabberwocky hard to play on drums?

78 out of 100: demanding, mostly on the independence between the hands and the feet. The beat itself is 53 out of 100; the rest of the number is everything around it.

How long is the drum part?

174 bars, about 4:26 at the written tempo. The course breaks it into 50 exercises over 15 sittings, about 27 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 Jabberwocky?

5 fills to learn, played 23 times: bars 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 28 and 17 more.

READ OFF THE SCORE ITSELF · 174 BARS ANALYSED