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Mean Street · Van Halen

EXERCISE 1 OF 55
Groove E -- Verse
0 / 112 BARS COVERED
0 / 55 PASSED · 19 BARS LIT · IN THE VERSE, VERSE 2, VERSE 3
VERSE
CHORUS
VERSE 2
CHORUS 2
PART P
PART T
VERSE 3
CHORUS 3
PART Z
OUTRO
OUTRO 2
10 groovesEJAIZT+5Fill into the next barFill that ends a sectionInto the next partStop / hitRest
GROOVE · 11
FILL · 9
LAND · 9
RUN · 3
JOIN · 10
LINK · 4
SECTION · 8
WHOLE SONG · 1
ABOUT THIS DRUM PART

How to play Mean Street on drums

112 bars of 4/4 at 134 BPM, about 3:20 of playing, on crash, ride, hi-hat, snare, high tom, mid tom, floor tom, kick and hi-hat foot.

90 out of 100. Hard, and what makes it hard is the independence between the hands and the feet.

TEMPO
134 BPM
TIME
4/4
BARS
112
LENGTH
3:20
DIFFICULTY
90/100

silence through bars 1-5, hi-hat through bars 6-17, snare through bars 18-25, hi-hat through bars 26-33, snare through bars 34-40 and hi-hat through bars 41-48, and 4 more changes after that.

The beat

The beat the song is built on is one bar, played through bars 7, 11-16 and 27-32, and 1 more place -- 17.6% of every bar the kit plays. This one moves around more than most: the beat is where to start, not the whole job.

    7
    1e+a2e+a3e+a4e+a
HH |xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx|
SD |----x-------x---|
BD |-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x|
Mean Street -- the groove · x hit · o open hi-hat · g ghost note · r cross-stick · X accent

The fills

9 fills to learn, played 17 times: bars 5, 9, 17, 20, 21, 24 and 11 more.

What the course does

It cuts the song into 45 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 -- 1 exercise, about 20 minutes. Open above.
  2. The grooves the song is built on -- AI -- 1 exercise, about 19 minutes.
  3. The grooves the song is built on -- J -- 3 exercises, about 24 minutes.
  4. Bars 5-22 -- 6 exercises, about 22 minutes.
  5. Through the Verse -- 4 exercises, about 33 minutes.
  6. Through the Verse and the Chorus -- 6 exercises, about 27 minutes.
  7. Bars 23-43 -- 4 exercises, about 30 minutes.
  8. Through Part P and Part T -- 4 exercises, about 30 minutes.
  9. and 7 more sittings after that.
START THE COURSE ↑

Questions

What BPM is Mean Street?

134 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 Mean Street hard to play on drums?

90 out of 100. Hard, and what makes it hard is the independence between the hands and the feet. The beat itself is 85 out of 100; the rest of the number is everything around it.

How long is the drum part?

112 bars, about 3:20 at the written tempo. The course breaks it into 45 exercises over 15 sittings, about 26 minutes each.

What do I need on the kit?

crash, ride, hi-hat, snare, high tom, mid tom, floor tom, kick and hi-hat foot. That is most of a full kit; the part moves around it rather than sitting in one place.

How many fills are in Mean Street?

9 fills to learn, played 17 times: bars 5, 9, 17, 20, 21, 24 and 11 more.

READ OFF THE SCORE ITSELF · 112 BARS ANALYSED