← SONGS

Midnight Special · Creedence Clearwater Revival

EXERCISE 1 OF 25
Groove D -- Chorus
0 / 114 BARS COVERED
0 / 25 PASSED · 67 BARS LIT · IN THE CHORUS, CHORUS 2
BREAK 2
CHORUS
PART S5
CHORUS 2
7 groovesDS3S5S7S1+2Fill into the next barFill that ends a sectionInto the next partStop / hitRest
GROOVE · 2
FILL · 8
LAND · 8
RUN · 1
JOIN · 3
SECTION · 2
WHOLE SONG · 1
ABOUT THIS DRUM PART

How to play Midnight Special on drums

114 bars of 4/4 at a walking 102 BPM, 4:28 of playing, on crash, hi-hat, snare, mid tom, floor tom and kick.

38 out of 100 -- a fair first song -- with the independence between the hands and the feet the part that decides it.

TEMPO
102 BPM
TIME
4/4
BARS
114
LENGTH
4:28
DIFFICULTY
38/100

silence through bars 1-4, toms through bars 5-6, silence through bars 7-14, hi-hat through bars 15-95, silence through bars 96-102 and hi-hat through bars 103-109, and 2 more changes after that.

The beat

The beat the song is built on is one bar, played through bars 15-18, 20 and 23-26, and 13 more places -- 70.5% of every bar the kit plays. Learn that one and the song is very nearly finished.

    16
    1e+a2e+a3e+a4e+a
HH |x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-|
SD |----x-------x---|
BD |x-------x-x---x-|
Midnight Special -- the groove · x hit · o open hi-hat · g ghost note · r cross-stick · X accent

The fills

8 fills to learn, played 14 times: bars 14, 19, 22, 27, 30, 40 and 8 more.

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 -- D -- 5 exercises, about 22 minutes.
  2. Through the Chorus -- 8 exercises, about 30 minutes.
  3. Bars 14-113 -- 9 exercises, about 29 minutes.
  4. The whole song -- 3 exercises, about 19 minutes.
START THE COURSE ↑

Questions

What BPM is Midnight Special?

102 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 Midnight Special hard to play on drums?

38 out of 100 -- a fair first song -- with the independence between the hands and the feet the part that decides it. The beat itself is 34 out of 100; the rest of the number is everything around it.

How long is the drum part?

114 bars, about 4:28 at the written tempo. The course breaks it into 16 exercises over 4 sittings, about 25 minutes each.

What do I need on the kit?

crash, hi-hat, 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 Midnight Special?

8 fills to learn, played 14 times: bars 14, 19, 22, 27, 30, 40 and 8 more.

READ OFF THE SCORE ITSELF · 114 BARS ANALYSED