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Kool Thing · Sonic Youth

EXERCISE 1 OF 77
Groove D -- Chorus
0 / 160 BARS COVERED
0 / 77 PASSED · 34 BARS LIT
COUNT-IN
PART C
CHORUS
CHORUS 2
PART AB
PART AJ
PART AD
CHORUS 3
OUTRO
OUTRO 2
8 groovesDMADAJAB+3Fill into the next barFill that ends a sectionInto the next partStop / hitRest
GROOVE · 15
FILL · 19
LAND · 19
RUN · 3
JOIN · 8
LINK · 5
SECTION · 7
WHOLE SONG · 1
ABOUT THIS DRUM PART

How to play Kool Thing on drums

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.

63 out of 100, a step up from a first song, and the work is in the independence between the hands and the feet.

TEMPO
155 BPM
TIME
4/4
BARS
160
LENGTH
4:08
DIFFICULTY
63/100

silence through bars 1-8, hi-hat through bars 9-95, toms through bars 96-100, snare through bars 101-104, ride through bars 105-118 and toms through bars 119-127, and 3 more changes after that.

The beat

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.

    61
    1e+a2e+a3e+a4e+a
CC |x---x-----------|
HH |--------o-o-o---|
SD |----x-------x---|
BD |x-------x-x---x-|
Kool Thing -- the groove · x hit · o open hi-hat · g ghost note · r cross-stick · X accent

The fills

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

What the course does

It cuts the song into 57 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 -- 3 exercises, about 20 minutes. Open above.
  2. The grooves the song is built on -- AA, J -- 2 exercises, about 29 minutes.
  3. Through Part C -- 2 exercises, about 29 minutes.
  4. Through Part C and the Chorus -- 7 exercises, about 28 minutes.
  5. Through the Chorus -- 2 exercises, about 28 minutes.
  6. Through the Chorus and Part M -- 5 exercises, about 29 minutes.
  7. Through the Chorus -- 5 exercises, about 31 minutes.
  8. Through the Chorus and Part M -- 3 exercises, about 24 minutes.
  9. and 10 more sittings after that.
START THE COURSE ↑

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