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Mr. Blue Sky · Electric Light Orchestra

EXERCISE 1 OF 29
Groove D -- Chorus
0 / 180 BARS COVERED
0 / 29 PASSED · 77 BARS LIT
PART B
CHORUS
PART G
CHORUS 2
PART G
CHORUS 3
OUTRO
OUTRO 2
8 groovesDIGNS7+3Fill into the next barFill that ends a sectionInto the next partStop / hitRest
GROOVE · 6
FILL · 3
LAND · 3
RUN · 2
JOIN · 6
LINK · 3
SECTION · 5
WHOLE SONG · 1
ABOUT THIS DRUM PART

How to play Mr. Blue Sky on drums

180 bars at 178 BPM -- fast, and 4:02 of it without a break -- on crash, ride, hi-hat, snare, high tom, mid tom, floor tom and kick.

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
178 BPM
TIME
4/4
BARS
180
LENGTH
4:02
DIFFICULTY
63/100

silence through bars 1-4, toms through bars 5-8, hi-hat through bars 9-36, snare through bars 37-42, ride through bars 43-44 and snare through bars 45-50, and 17 more changes after that.

The beat

The beat the song is built on is one bar, played through bars 9-11, 13-36 and 53, and 3 more places -- 47% of every bar the kit plays. Learn that one and most of the song is already under your hands.

    10
    1.....2.....3.....4.....
HH |x-----x-----x-----x-----|
SD |------x-----------x-----|
BD |x-----------x-----------|
Mr. Blue Sky -- the groove · x hit · o open hi-hat · g ghost note · r cross-stick · X accent

The fills

3 fills to learn, played 5 times: bars 8, 54, 104, 160 and 162.

What the course does

It cuts the song into 25 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 -- 2 exercises, about 19 minutes. Open above.
  2. The grooves the song is built on -- N -- 1 exercise, about 18 minutes.
  3. The grooves the song is built on -- I -- 4 exercises, about 26 minutes.
  4. Bars 8-56 -- 8 exercises, about 36 minutes.
  5. Bars 93-137 -- 3 exercises, about 14 minutes.
  6. Through the Outro -- 1 exercise, about 18 minutes.
  7. Through the Outro -- 5 exercises, about 29 minutes.
  8. Through the Outro and the Outro 2 -- 4 exercises, about 30 minutes.
  9. and 1 more sittings after that.
START THE COURSE ↑

Questions

What BPM is Mr. Blue Sky?

178 BPM, in 4/4, with the time kept in thirty-second notes. At that speed the thirty-second notes are the whole difficulty, so the room will take it down to a quarter of it and climb back.

Is Mr. Blue Sky 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 49 out of 100; the rest of the number is everything around it.

How long is the drum part?

180 bars, about 4:02 at the written tempo. The course breaks it into 25 exercises over 9 sittings, about 22 minutes each.

What do I need on the kit?

crash, ride, hi-hat, snare, high tom, 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 Mr. Blue Sky?

3 fills to learn, played 5 times: bars 8, 54, 104, 160 and 162.

READ OFF THE SCORE ITSELF · 180 BARS ANALYSED