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North Star · Hit The Switch

North Star · Hit The Switch
EXERCISE 1 OF 53
Groove B -- Chorus
0 / 131 BARS COVERED
0 / 53 PASSED · 46 BARS LIT
CHORUS
PART H
PART M
CHORUS 2
PART H
CHORUS 3
PART S
CHORUS 4
OUTRO
6 groovesBHMSS9+1Fill into the next barFill that ends a sectionInto the next partStop / hitRest
GROOVE · 6
FILL · 13
LAND · 13
RUN · 1
JOIN · 8
LINK · 6
SECTION · 5
WHOLE SONG · 1
ABOUT THIS DRUM PART

How to play North Star on drums

131 bars at 195 BPM -- fast, and 2:41 of it without a break -- on crash, ride, hi-hat, snare, high tom, mid tom, floor tom, kick and hi-hat foot.

84 out of 100. Hard, and what makes it hard is the independence between the hands and the feet.

TEMPO
195 BPM
TIME
4/4
BARS
131
LENGTH
2:41
DIFFICULTY
84/100

hi-hat through bar 1, snare through bars 2-7, hi-hat through bars 8-9, snare through bars 10-11, hi-hat through bars 12-35 and ride through bars 36-51, and 10 more changes after that.

The beat

The beat the song is built on is one bar, played through bars 2-8, 10-15 and 18-24, and 7 more places -- 36.5% of every bar the kit plays. Learn that one and most of the song is already under your hands.

    19
    1e+a2e+a3e+a4e+a
HH |o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-|
SD |--x---x---x---x-|
BD |x---xx--x---xx--|
North Star -- the groove · x hit · o open hi-hat · g ghost note · r cross-stick · X accent

The fills

13 fills to learn, played 27 times: bars 9, 17, 25, 35, 37, 39 and 21 more.

What the course does

It cuts the song into 39 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 -- B -- 2 exercises, about 23 minutes.
  2. The grooves the song is built on -- H -- 3 exercises, about 27 minutes.
  3. The grooves the song is built on -- S -- 5 exercises, about 30 minutes.
  4. Through the Chorus and Part H -- 6 exercises, about 24 minutes.
  5. Through Part H and Part M -- 3 exercises, about 26 minutes.
  6. Through Part H and Part M -- 3 exercises, about 30 minutes.
  7. Through Part M -- 3 exercises, about 27 minutes.
  8. Bars 52-88 -- 8 exercises, about 31 minutes.
  9. and 4 more sittings after that.
START THE COURSE ↑

Questions

What BPM is North Star?

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

Is North Star hard to play on drums?

84 out of 100. Hard, and what makes it hard is the independence between the hands and the feet. The beat itself is 74 out of 100; the rest of the number is everything around it.

How long is the drum part?

131 bars, about 2:41 at the written tempo. The course breaks it into 39 exercises over 12 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 North Star?

13 fills to learn, played 27 times: bars 9, 17, 25, 35, 37, 39 and 21 more.

READ OFF THE SCORE ITSELF · 131 BARS ANALYSED