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Pinball Wizard · The Who

EXERCISE 5 OF 36
Groove D -- Part D
18 / 82 BARS COVERED
0 / 36 PASSED · 5 BARS LIT · IN THE PART D
PART D
PART F
PART M
PART S
PART Y
OUTRO
OUTRO 2
8 groovesADS8FMD+3Fill into the next barFill that ends a sectionInto the next partStop / hitRest
GROOVE · 10
FILL · 5
LAND · 5
RUN · 2
JOIN · 6
LINK · 3
SECTION · 4
WHOLE SONG · 1
ABOUT THIS DRUM PART

How to play Pinball Wizard on drums

82 bars of 4/4 at 125 BPM, about 2:37 of playing, on crash, hi-hat, snare, high tom, mid tom, floor tom and kick.

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

TEMPO
125 BPM
TIME
4/4
BARS
82
LENGTH
2:37
DIFFICULTY
66/100

silence through bars 1-5, hi-hat through bars 6-50, silence through bars 51-65 and hi-hat through bars 66-82.

The beat

The beat the song is built on is one bar, played through bars 66-82 -- 26.6% of every bar the kit plays. That is the spine of it; everything else is what happens around it.

    68
    1...........2...........3...........4...........
CC |x-----------x-----------------------x-----------|
HH |------o-----------o-----o-----o-----------o-----|
SD |------------x-----------------------x-----------|
FT |------------------x-x-x-------------------------|
BD |x-----x-----------------x-----x-----------x-----|
Pinball Wizard -- the groove · x hit · o open hi-hat · g ghost note · r cross-stick · X accent

The fills

5 fills to learn, played 5 times: bars 17, 29, 38, 48 and 65.

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 -- AD -- 4 exercises, about 27 minutes.
  2. The grooves the song is built on -- D -- 1 exercise, about 17 minutes. Open above.
  3. The grooves the song is built on -- M -- 1 exercise, about 16 minutes.
  4. Through Part D -- 2 exercises, about 22 minutes.
  5. Through Part D and Part F -- 3 exercises, about 27 minutes.
  6. Through Part F -- 4 exercises, about 26 minutes.
  7. Through Part F and Part M -- 3 exercises, about 29 minutes.
  8. Through Part M -- 4 exercises, about 28 minutes.
  9. and 3 more sittings after that.
START THE COURSE ↑

Questions

What BPM is Pinball Wizard?

125 BPM, in 4/4, with the time kept in thirty-second 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 Pinball Wizard hard to play on drums?

66 out of 100: demanding, mostly on the independence between the hands and the feet. The beat itself is 58 out of 100; the rest of the number is everything around it.

How long is the drum part?

82 bars, about 2:37 at the written tempo. The course breaks it into 30 exercises over 11 sittings, about 26 minutes each.

What do I need on the kit?

crash, hi-hat, snare, high tom, 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 Pinball Wizard?

5 fills to learn, played 5 times: bars 17, 29, 38, 48 and 65.

READ OFF THE SCORE ITSELF · 82 BARS ANALYSED