← SONGS

Knock Me Down · Red Hot Chili Peppers

EXERCISE 6 OF 37
Groove C
55 / 117 BARS COVERED
0 / 37 PASSED · 5 BARS LIT · IN THE VERSE, VERSE 2
VERSE
CHORUS
VERSE 2
PART K
PART V
OUTRO
5 groovesJEVKS1Fill into the next barFill that ends a sectionInto the next partStop / hitRest
GROOVE · 8
FILL · 8
LAND · 8
RUN · 1
JOIN · 6
LINK · 3
SECTION · 2
WHOLE SONG · 1
ABOUT THIS DRUM PART

How to play Knock Me Down on drums

117 bars of 4/4 at 126 BPM, about 3:42 of playing, on crash, ride, hi-hat, snare, mid tom and kick.

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
126 BPM
TIME
4/4
BARS
117
LENGTH
3:42
DIFFICULTY
64/100

silence through bars 1-5, hi-hat through bars 6-21, ride through bars 22-29, hi-hat through bars 30-49, ride through bars 50-57 and hi-hat through bars 58-68, and 2 more changes after that.

The beat

The beat the song is built on is a 2-bar phrase, played through bars 8-11, 16 and 18-19, and 2 more places -- 15% of every bar the kit plays. This one moves around more than most: the beat is where to start, not the whole job.

    8                9
    1e+a2e+a3e+a4e+a 1e+a2e+a3e+a4e+a
HH |xxxx-xxxxxxx-xxx|xxxx-xxxxxxx-xoo|
SD |----x-------x---|----x-------x---|
BD |x-------x-x---x-|--x-------x---x-|
Knock Me Down -- the groove · x hit · o open hi-hat · g ghost note · r cross-stick · X accent

The fills

8 fills to learn, played 21 times: bars 5, 13, 21, 25, 29, 37 and 15 more.

What the course does

It cuts the song into 28 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 -- E, V -- 2 exercises, about 29 minutes.
  2. The grooves the song is built on -- K -- 3 exercises, about 24 minutes.
  3. Through the Verse -- 3 exercises, about 22 minutes. Open above.
  4. Through the Verse -- 1 exercise, about 17 minutes.
  5. Through the Verse -- 4 exercises, about 29 minutes.
  6. Through the Verse and the Chorus -- 5 exercises, about 29 minutes.
  7. Bars 26-54 -- 8 exercises, about 32 minutes.
  8. Bars 30-69 -- 7 exercises, about 29 minutes.
  9. and 2 more sittings after that.
START THE COURSE ↑

Questions

What BPM is Knock Me Down?

126 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 Knock Me Down 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 66 out of 100; the rest of the number is everything around it.

How long is the drum part?

117 bars, about 3:42 at the written tempo. The course breaks it into 28 exercises over 10 sittings, about 24 minutes each.

What do I need on the kit?

crash, ride, hi-hat, snare, mid 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 Knock Me Down?

8 fills to learn, played 21 times: bars 5, 13, 21, 25, 29, 37 and 15 more.

READ OFF THE SCORE ITSELF · 117 BARS ANALYSED