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My Life · Billy Joel

EXERCISE 10 OF 31
Groove G -- Part G
108 / 153 BARS COVERED
0 / 31 PASSED · 11 BARS LIT
CHORUS
PART G
CHORUS 2
OUTRO 2
3 groovesCKGFill into the next barFill that ends a sectionInto the next partStop / hitRest
GROOVE · 12
FILL · 5
LAND · 5
RUN · 1
JOIN · 4
LINK · 1
SECTION · 2
WHOLE SONG · 1
ABOUT THIS DRUM PART

How to play My Life on drums

153 bars of 4/4 at 131 BPM, about 4:40 of playing, on crash, hi-hat, snare, mid tom, floor tom and kick.

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

TEMPO
131 BPM
TIME
4/4
BARS
153
LENGTH
4:40
DIFFICULTY
49/100

The time is kept on the hi-hat the whole way through.

The beat

The beat the song is built on is one bar, played through bars 5-7, 9-15 and 18-19, and 25 more places -- 60.8% of every bar the kit plays. Learn that one and the song is very nearly finished.

    5
    1e+a2e+a3e+a4e+a
HH |x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-|
SD |----x-------x---|
BD |x-------x-------|
My Life -- the groove · x hit · o open hi-hat · g ghost note · r cross-stick · X accent

The fills

5 fills to learn, played 11 times: bars 8, 16, 30, 66, 68, 82 and 5 more.

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 -- C -- 4 exercises, about 28 minutes.
  2. Bars 1-90 -- 2 exercises, about 18 minutes.
  3. Through the Chorus -- 3 exercises, about 19 minutes.
  4. Through the Chorus -- 3 exercises, about 30 minutes. Open above.
  5. Through the Chorus and Part G -- 3 exercises, about 22 minutes.
  6. Bars 51-106 -- 3 exercises, about 30 minutes.
  7. Through Part K and the Chorus 2 -- 4 exercises, about 20 minutes.
  8. Through the Chorus 2 -- 2 exercises, about 29 minutes.
  9. and 1 more sittings after that.
START THE COURSE ↑

Questions

What BPM is My Life?

131 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 Life hard to play on drums?

49 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 31 out of 100; the rest of the number is everything around it.

How long is the drum part?

153 bars, about 4:40 at the written tempo. The course breaks it into 25 exercises over 9 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 My Life?

5 fills to learn, played 11 times: bars 8, 16, 30, 66, 68, 82 and 5 more.

READ OFF THE SCORE ITSELF · 153 BARS ANALYSED