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Paper Cuts · Nirvana

EXERCISE 17 OF 35
Groove M -- Part M
81 / 103 BARS COVERED
0 / 35 PASSED · 11 BARS LIT · IN THE PART M
PART C
CHORUS
PART I
PART K
PART M
CHORUS 2
PART I
PART K
PART M
8 groovesFIMKC+3Fill into the next barFill that ends a sectionInto the next partStop / hitRest
GROOVE · 7
FILL · 4
LAND · 4
RUN · 3
JOIN · 6
LINK · 5
SECTION · 5
WHOLE SONG · 1
ABOUT THIS DRUM PART

How to play Paper Cuts on drums

103 bars of 4/4 at a walking 104 BPM, 3:58 of playing, on crash, ride, hi-hat, snare, high tom, mid tom, floor tom, kick and hi-hat foot.

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

TEMPO
104 BPM
TIME
4/4
BARS
103
LENGTH
3:58
DIFFICULTY
46/100

toms through bars 3-26, ride through bars 27-38, hi-hat through bars 39-45, ride through bars 46-71, toms through bars 72-73 and ride through bars 74-85, and 2 more changes after that.

The beat

The beat the song is built on is a 2-bar phrase, played through bars 11-25 and 56-72 -- 31.7% of every bar the kit plays. That is the spine of it; everything else is what happens around it.

    11               12
    1e+a2e+a3e+a4e+a 1e+a2e+a3e+a4e+a
RD |----------------|------x-x-x-x-x-|
SD |----f-------f---|----f-------x---|
T2 |x-x---x-x-x---x-|x-x-------------|
FT |x-x---x-x-x---x-|x-x-------------|
BD |x-x---x-x-x---x-|x-x-------------|
Paper Cuts -- the groove · x hit · o open hi-hat · g ghost note · r cross-stick · X accent

The fills

4 fills to learn, played 5 times: bars 26, 73, 93, 99 and 103.

What the course does

It cuts the song into 30 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 -- F, I -- 4 exercises, about 28 minutes.
  2. The grooves the song is built on -- K -- 4 exercises, about 30 minutes.
  3. Bars 7-30 -- 4 exercises, about 20 minutes.
  4. Through Part I and Part K -- 4 exercises, about 26 minutes.
  5. Through Part M -- 3 exercises, about 30 minutes. Open above.
  6. Bars 46-94 -- 7 exercises, about 30 minutes.
  7. Bars 90-103 -- 7 exercises, about 27 minutes.
  8. The whole song -- 2 exercises, about 14 minutes.
START THE COURSE ↑

Questions

What BPM is Paper Cuts?

104 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 Paper Cuts hard to play on drums?

46 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 29 out of 100; the rest of the number is everything around it.

How long is the drum part?

103 bars, about 3:58 at the written tempo. The course breaks it into 30 exercises over 8 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 Paper Cuts?

4 fills to learn, played 5 times: bars 26, 73, 93, 99 and 103.

READ OFF THE SCORE ITSELF · 103 BARS ANALYSED