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Johnny B. Goode · Chuck Berry

EXERCISE 1 OF 9
Groove D -- Chorus
0 / 110 BARS COVERED
0 / 9 PASSED · 91 BARS LIT · IN THE CHORUS, CHORUS 2, OUTRO 2
CHORUS
CHORUS 2
OUTRO 2
3 groovesDBS1Fill into the next barFill that ends a sectionInto the next partStop / hitRest
GROOVE · 3
RUN · 1
JOIN · 2
SECTION · 2
WHOLE SONG · 1
ABOUT THIS DRUM PART

How to play Johnny B. Goode on drums

110 bars at 168 BPM -- fast, and 2:36 of it without a break -- on ride, hi-hat, snare, kick and hi-hat foot.

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

TEMPO
168 BPM
TIME
4/4
BARS
110
LENGTH
2:36
DIFFICULTY
75/100

silence through bars 1-4, ride through bars 5-61, snare through bars 62-65, ride through bars 66-73, snare through bars 74-77 and ride through bars 78-110.

The beat

The beat the song is built on is one bar, played through bars 8-10, 12-61 and 66-73, and 1 more place -- 85% of every bar the kit plays. Learn that one and the song is very nearly finished.

    12
    1.....2.....3.....4.....
RD |x-----x---x-x-----x---x-|
SD |------x-----------x-----|
BD |x-----------x-----------|
Johnny B. Goode -- the groove · x hit · o open hi-hat · g ghost note · r cross-stick · X accent

The fills

There are no fills to speak of: the part holds one beat the whole way through.

What the course does

It cuts the song into 8 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 -- D -- 1 exercise, about 16 minutes.
  2. Through the Chorus -- 2 exercises, about 20 minutes.
  3. Bars 62-110 -- 5 exercises, about 29 minutes.
  4. The whole song -- 1 exercise, about 10 minutes.
START THE COURSE ↑

Questions

What BPM is Johnny B. Goode?

168 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 Johnny B. Goode hard to play on drums?

75 out of 100: demanding, mostly on the independence between the hands and the feet. The beat itself is 57 out of 100; the rest of the number is everything around it.

How long is the drum part?

110 bars, about 2:36 at the written tempo. The course breaks it into 8 exercises over 4 sittings, about 19 minutes each.

What do I need on the kit?

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

READ OFF THE SCORE ITSELF · 110 BARS ANALYSED