← SONGS

Mercia · Thornhill

EXERCISE 17 OF 53
Groove V -- Part V
45 / 125 BARS COVERED
0 / 53 PASSED · 2 BARS LIT · IN THE PART V
COUNT-IN
PART C
CHORUS
BREAK 2
PART S6
PART V
PART AB
BREAK 3
CHORUS 2
15 groovesJABCS1S5+10Fill into the next barFill that ends a sectionInto the next partStop / hitRest
GROOVE · 8
FILL · 13
LAND · 13
RUN · 3
JOIN · 8
SECTION · 7
WHOLE SONG · 1
ABOUT THIS DRUM PART

How to play Mercia on drums

125 bars of 4/4 at a walking 102 BPM, 5:17 of playing, on crash, hi-hat, snare, high tom, mid tom, floor tom, kick and hi-hat foot.

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
102 BPM
TIME
4/4
BARS
125
LENGTH
5:17
DIFFICULTY
63/100

silence through bars 1-9, hi-hat through bars 10-21, snare through bars 22-37, silence through bars 38-45, hi-hat through bars 46-65 and snare through bars 66-78, and 9 more changes after that.

The beat

The beat the song is built on is one bar, played through bars 22-24, 26-28 and 30-32, and 5 more places -- 26.7% of every bar the kit plays. That is the spine of it; everything else is what happens around it.

    24
    1.......2.......3.......4.......
CC |x---g---x---g---x---g---x---g---|
SD |------g-----x-----g-----x-----g-|
BD |x-------------------------x-----|
Mercia -- the groove · x hit · o open hi-hat · g ghost note · r cross-stick · X accent

The fills

13 fills to learn, played 23 times: bars 25, 29, 33, 49, 53, 65 and 17 more.

What the course does

It cuts the song into 39 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 -- J, K -- 2 exercises, about 27 minutes.
  2. The grooves the song is built on -- C -- 1 exercise, about 18 minutes.
  3. Through Part C -- 3 exercises, about 26 minutes.
  4. Bars 19-29 -- 4 exercises, about 26 minutes.
  5. Bars 22-50 -- 6 exercises, about 25 minutes.
  6. Through Part S6 and Part V -- 4 exercises, about 28 minutes. Open above.
  7. Bars 52-62 -- 3 exercises, about 24 minutes.
  8. Through Part V and Part AB -- 6 exercises, about 27 minutes.
  9. and 5 more sittings after that.
START THE COURSE ↑

Questions

What BPM is Mercia?

102 BPM, in 4/4, with the time kept in thirty-second 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 Mercia 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 43 out of 100; the rest of the number is everything around it.

How long is the drum part?

125 bars, about 5:17 at the written tempo. The course breaks it into 39 exercises over 13 sittings, about 24 minutes each.

What do I need on the kit?

crash, 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 Mercia?

13 fills to learn, played 23 times: bars 25, 29, 33, 49, 53, 65 and 17 more.

READ OFF THE SCORE ITSELF · 125 BARS ANALYSED