← SONGS

La Bamba · Los Lobos

EXERCISE 17 OF 19
Join Chorus 4 to Break 4 (bars 86-88)
117 / 129 BARS COVERED
0 / 19 PASSED · 3 BARS LIT · IN THE CHORUS 4, BREAK 4
CHORUS
CHORUS 2
PART B
CHORUS 4
BREAK 4
OUTRO
9 groovesCIBS1S10+4Fill into the next barFill that ends a sectionInto the next partStop / hitRest
GROOVE · 3
FILL · 2
LAND · 2
RUN · 1
JOIN · 5
LINK · 2
SECTION · 3
WHOLE SONG · 1
ABOUT THIS DRUM PART

How to play La Bamba on drums

129 bars of 4/4 at 152 BPM, about 2:51 of playing, on crash, ride, snare, mid tom, floor tom and kick.

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

TEMPO
152 BPM
TIME
4/4
BARS
129
LENGTH
2:51
DIFFICULTY
45/100

silence through bars 1-5, ride through bars 6-61, silence through bars 62-65, ride through bars 66-87, silence through bars 88-90 and kick and crashes through bars 91-129.

The beat

The beat the song is built on is one bar, played through bars 91-128 -- 32.5% of every bar the kit plays. That is the spine of it; everything else is what happens around it.

    91
    1e+a2e+a
CC |x-xxx-xx|
La Bamba -- the groove · x hit · o open hi-hat · g ghost note · r cross-stick · X accent

The fills

2 fills to learn, played 2 times: bars 41 and 65.

What the course does

It cuts the song into 16 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 -- I, B -- 4 exercises, about 30 minutes.
  2. Bars 6-42 -- 5 exercises, about 31 minutes.
  3. Bars 39-87 -- 7 exercises, about 27 minutes.
  4. The whole song -- 3 exercises, about 19 minutes. Open above.
START THE COURSE ↑

Questions

What BPM is La Bamba?

152 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 La Bamba hard to play on drums?

45 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 9 out of 100; the rest of the number is everything around it.

How long is the drum part?

129 bars, about 2:51 at the written tempo. The course breaks it into 16 exercises over 4 sittings, about 27 minutes each.

What do I need on the kit?

crash, ride, snare, 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 La Bamba?

2 fills to learn, played 2 times: bars 41 and 65.

READ OFF THE SCORE ITSELF · 129 BARS ANALYSED