← SONGS

Panama · Van Halen

EXERCISE 18 OF 51
Groove K
97 / 123 BARS COVERED
0 / 51 PASSED · 4 BARS LIT · IN THE PART F, PART D, OUTRO
PART B
PART F
CHORUS
PART D
CHORUS 2
PART F
CHORUS 3
OUTRO
OUTRO 2
7 groovesMFDBE+2Fill into the next barFill that ends a sectionInto the next partStop / hitRest
GROOVE · 11
FILL · 7
LAND · 7
RUN · 2
JOIN · 10
LINK · 7
SECTION · 6
WHOLE SONG · 1
ABOUT THIS DRUM PART

How to play Panama on drums

123 bars of 4/4 at 141 BPM, about 3:29 of playing, on crash, ride, hi-hat, snare, high tom, mid tom, floor tom, kick and hi-hat foot.

71 out of 100: demanding, mostly on the independence between the hands and the feet.

TEMPO
141 BPM
TIME
4/4
BARS
123
LENGTH
3:29
DIFFICULTY
71/100

toms through bars 1-8, hi-hat through bars 9-38, ride through bars 39-42, hi-hat through bars 43-74, ride through bars 75-82 and hi-hat through bars 83-123.

The beat

The beat the song is built on is one bar, played through bars 28-33, 52-57 and 85-89, and 1 more place -- 26.2% of every bar the kit plays. That is the spine of it; everything else is what happens around it.

    28
    1e+a2e+a3e+a4e+a
HH |x-g-x-g-x-g-x-g-|
SD |----x-------x---|
BD |X---X---X---X---|
Panama -- the groove · x hit · o open hi-hat · g ghost note · r cross-stick · X accent

The fills

7 fills to learn, played 14 times: bars 8, 18, 34, 38, 39, 40 and 8 more.

What the course does

It cuts the song into 43 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 -- M -- 1 exercise, about 16 minutes.
  2. The grooves the song is built on -- D -- 5 exercises, about 31 minutes.
  3. The grooves the song is built on -- F -- 1 exercise, about 15 minutes.
  4. Through Part B -- 4 exercises, about 28 minutes.
  5. Through Part B and Part F -- 3 exercises, about 24 minutes.
  6. Bars 9-17 -- 3 exercises, about 25 minutes.
  7. Through Part F and the Chorus -- 5 exercises, about 29 minutes. Open above.
  8. Bars 22-39 -- 4 exercises, about 31 minutes.
  9. and 6 more sittings after that.
START THE COURSE ↑

Questions

What BPM is Panama?

141 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 Panama hard to play on drums?

71 out of 100: demanding, mostly on the independence between the hands and the feet. The beat itself is 57 out of 100; the rest of the number is everything around it.

How long is the drum part?

123 bars, about 3:29 at the written tempo. The course breaks it into 43 exercises over 14 sittings, about 25 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 Panama?

7 fills to learn, played 14 times: bars 8, 18, 34, 38, 39, 40 and 8 more.

READ OFF THE SCORE ITSELF · 123 BARS ANALYSED