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Magic Dance · David Bowie

EXERCISE 1 OF 15
Groove B -- Verse
0 / 111 BARS COVERED
0 / 15 PASSED · 83 BARS LIT · IN THE VERSE, OUTRO
VERSE
OUTRO
3 groovesBDS1Fill into the next barFill that ends a sectionInto the next partStop / hitRest
GROOVE · 2
FILL · 4
LAND · 4
RUN · 1
JOIN · 1
LINK · 1
SECTION · 1
WHOLE SONG · 1
ABOUT THIS DRUM PART

How to play Magic Dance on drums

111 bars of 4/4 at a walking 106 BPM, 4:11 of playing, on crash, hi-hat, snare and kick.

70 out of 100: demanding, mostly on how much of it falls off the beat.

TEMPO
106 BPM
TIME
4/4
BARS
111
LENGTH
4:11
DIFFICULTY
70/100

silence through bars 1-3 and hi-hat through bars 4-111.

The beat

The beat the song is built on is one bar, played through bars 4-20, 23-25 and 27-46, and 10 more places -- 76.9% of every bar the kit plays. Learn that one and the song is very nearly finished.

    4
    1e+a2e+a3e+a4e+a
HH |xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx|
SD |----x-------x---|
BD |x-----x-x-----x-|
Magic Dance -- the groove · x hit · o open hi-hat · g ghost note · r cross-stick · X accent

The fills

4 fills to learn, played 6 times: bars 21, 47, 84, 100, 101 and 102.

What the course does

It cuts the song into 10 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 -- B -- 2 exercises, about 21 minutes. Open above.
  2. Through the Verse -- 5 exercises, about 31 minutes.
  3. Through the Verse and the Outro -- 7 exercises, about 27 minutes.
  4. The whole song -- 1 exercise, about 10 minutes.
START THE COURSE ↑

Questions

What BPM is Magic Dance?

106 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 Magic Dance hard to play on drums?

70 out of 100: demanding, mostly on how much of it falls off the beat. The beat itself is 62 out of 100; the rest of the number is everything around it.

How long is the drum part?

111 bars, about 4:11 at the written tempo. The course breaks it into 10 exercises over 4 sittings, about 22 minutes each.

What do I need on the kit?

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

How many fills are in Magic Dance?

4 fills to learn, played 6 times: bars 21, 47, 84, 100, 101 and 102.

READ OFF THE SCORE ITSELF · 111 BARS ANALYSED