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My Friends · Red Hot Chili Peppers

EXERCISE 30 OF 33
Fill at bar 79 (a small one)
65 / 80 BARS COVERED
0 / 33 PASSED · 1 BAR LIT · IN THE OUTRO 2
COUNT-IN
CHORUS
PART E
OUTRO
OUTRO 2
4 groovesCS1REFill into the next barFill that ends a sectionInto the next partStop / hitRest
GROOVE · 6
FILL · 8
LAND · 8
RUN · 1
JOIN · 3
LINK · 3
SECTION · 3
WHOLE SONG · 1
ABOUT THIS DRUM PART

How to play My Friends on drums

80 bars of 4/4 at a walking 84 BPM, 3:47 of playing, on crash, ride, hi-hat, snare, high tom, mid tom, floor tom, kick and hi-hat foot.

54 out of 100, a step up from a first song, and the work is in the independence between the hands and the feet.

TEMPO
84 BPM
TIME
4/4
BARS
80
LENGTH
3:47
DIFFICULTY
54/100

silence through bars 1-13, hi-hat through bars 14-19, ride through bars 20-27, hi-hat through bars 28-33, ride through bars 34-49 and hi-hat through bars 50-55, and 4 more changes after that.

The beat

The beat the song is built on is a 2-bar phrase, played through bars 14-19, 28-33 and 50-55, and 1 more place -- 35.3% of every bar the kit plays. Learn that one and most of the song is already under your hands.

    16               17
    1e+a2e+a3e+a4e+a 1e+a2e+a3e+a4e+a
HH |x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-|x-x-x-x-x-x-x-o-|
SD |----x-------x---|----x-------x---|
BD |x-----x-x-------|x-----x-x-------|
My Friends -- the groove · x hit · o open hi-hat · g ghost note · r cross-stick · X accent

The fills

8 fills to learn, played 12 times: bars 27, 37, 41, 43, 44, 45 and 6 more.

What the course does

It cuts the song into 24 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 -- C, E -- 6 exercises, about 32 minutes.
  2. The grooves the song is built on -- F (a two-bar phrase) -- 4 exercises, about 23 minutes.
  3. Through the Chorus and Part E -- 3 exercises, about 22 minutes.
  4. Through the Chorus and Part E -- 4 exercises, about 28 minutes.
  5. Through Part E and the Outro -- 7 exercises, about 25 minutes.
  6. Through the Outro and the Outro 2 -- 5 exercises, about 32 minutes.
  7. The whole song -- 4 exercises, about 20 minutes. Open above.
START THE COURSE ↑

Questions

What BPM is My Friends?

84 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 My Friends hard to play on drums?

54 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 27 out of 100; the rest of the number is everything around it.

How long is the drum part?

80 bars, about 3:47 at the written tempo. The course breaks it into 24 exercises over 7 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 My Friends?

8 fills to learn, played 12 times: bars 27, 37, 41, 43, 44, 45 and 6 more.

READ OFF THE SCORE ITSELF · 80 BARS ANALYSED