← SONGS

Message In A Bottle · The Police

EXERCISE 2 OF 72
Groove P -- Part P (a two-bar phrase)
29 / 185 BARS COVERED
0 / 72 PASSED · 17 BARS LIT · IN THE PART P, PART K
PART D
PART H
PART P
PART F
PART K
PART Z
PART AF
PART K
OUTRO 2
12 groovesBBKPFD+7Fill into the next barFill that ends a sectionInto the next partStop / hitRest
GROOVE · 24
FILL · 6
LAND · 6
RUN · 1
JOIN · 13
LINK · 10
SECTION · 11
WHOLE SONG · 1
ABOUT THIS DRUM PART

How to play Message In A Bottle on drums

185 bars of 4/4 at 151 BPM, about 4:54 of playing, on crash, ride, hi-hat, snare, high tom, mid tom, floor tom, kick and hi-hat foot.

71 out of 100: demanding, mostly on the independence between the hands and the feet.

TEMPO
151 BPM
TIME
4/4
BARS
185
LENGTH
4:54
DIFFICULTY
71/100

hi-hat through bars 1-24, ride through bars 25-30, hi-hat through bars 31-59, ride through bars 60-64, hi-hat through bars 65-102 and ride through bars 103-108, and 2 more changes after that.

The beat

The beat the song is built on is one bar, played through bars 143, 145-146 and 149-154, and 6 more places -- 15.7% of every bar the kit plays. This one moves around more than most: the beat is where to start, not the whole job.

    143
    1e+a2e+a3e+a4e+a
RD |x-g-x-g-x-g-x-g-|
SD |----x-------x---|
BD |x---x---x---x---|
Message In A Bottle -- the groove · x hit · o open hi-hat · g ghost note · r cross-stick · X accent

The fills

6 fills to learn, played 10 times: bars 20, 24, 27, 28, 90, 98 and 4 more.

What the course does

It cuts the song into 65 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 -- BB -- 1 exercise, about 15 minutes.
  2. The grooves the song is built on -- P, D -- 2 exercises, about 29 minutes. Open above.
  3. Through Part A and Part D -- 3 exercises, about 27 minutes.
  4. Through Part D -- 2 exercises, about 18 minutes.
  5. Through Part D and Part F -- 4 exercises, about 26 minutes.
  6. Bars 19-25 -- 4 exercises, about 27 minutes.
  7. Bars 17-29 -- 5 exercises, about 23 minutes.
  8. Bars 30-69 -- 2 exercises, about 26 minutes.
  9. and 17 more sittings after that.
START THE COURSE ↑

Questions

What BPM is Message In A Bottle?

151 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 Message In A Bottle hard to play on drums?

71 out of 100: demanding, mostly on the independence between the hands and the feet. The beat itself is 55 out of 100; the rest of the number is everything around it.

How long is the drum part?

185 bars, about 4:54 at the written tempo. The course breaks it into 65 exercises over 25 sittings, about 24 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 Message In A Bottle?

6 fills to learn, played 10 times: bars 20, 24, 27, 28, 90, 98 and 4 more.

READ OFF THE SCORE ITSELF · 185 BARS ANALYSED