Kool Thing · Sonic Youth

160 bars at 155 BPM -- fast, and 4:08 of it without a break -- on crash, ride, hi-hat, snare, high tom, mid tom, floor tom and kick.

Alternative / IndiePunk150 BPM and up
TEMPO
155 BPM
TIME
4/4
BARS
160
LENGTH
4:08
DIFFICULTY
63/100
THE BEAT

One bar, and 22% of the song

The beat the song is built on is one bar, played through bars 13, 17 and 19, and 31 more places -- 22.4% of every bar the kit plays. This one moves around more than most: the beat is where to start, not the whole job.

LOOP · 155 BPM
KOOL THING · BAR 61
THE BEAT, WRITTEN OUT →
THE FILLS

Where it comes off the beat

19 fills to learn, played 43 times: bars 15, 16, 20, 22, 24, 32 and 37 more.

LOOP · 155 BPM
BARS 15-16 · LANDS ON BAR 17 · PLAYED 2 TIMES
LOOP · 155 BPM
BAR 20 · LANDS ON BAR 21 · PLAYED 5 TIMES
LOOP · 155 BPM
BAR 22 · LANDS ON BAR 23 · PLAYED 2 TIMES
LOOP · 155 BPM
BAR 32 · LANDS ON BAR 33

15 more fills are written out on the fills page.

EVERY FILL, WRITTEN OUT →
THE SHAPE

How the song is built

160 bars across 13 sections: 84 keep time, 43 are fills, 9 are stops and 8 are silent. The longest unbroken stretch of time is bars 59-91.

COUNT-IN
CHORUS
CHORUS 2
PART AB
PART AJ
PART AD
CHORUS 3
OUTRO
8 groovesDMADAJAB+3Fill into the next barFill that ends a sectionInto the next partStop / hitRest

Questions

What BPM is Kool Thing?

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

Is Kool Thing hard to play on drums?

63 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?

160 bars, about 4:08 at the written tempo. The course breaks it into 57 exercises over 18 sittings, about 27 minutes each.

What do I need on the kit?

crash, ride, hi-hat, snare, high tom, mid tom, floor 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 Kool Thing?

19 fills to learn, played 43 times: bars 15, 16, 20, 22, 24, 32 and 37 more.

READ OFF THE SCORE ITSELF · 160 BARS ANALYSED
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