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Purple Reign · Dance Gavin Dance

EXERCISE 1 OF 74
Groove A -- Part A (a two-bar phrase)
0 / 186 BARS COVERED
0 / 74 PASSED · 24 BARS LIT · IN THE PART A
PART A
PART F
PART K
PART R
PART A
OUTRO
OUTRO 2
14 groovesAEAKAAF+9Fill into the next barFill that ends a sectionInto the next partStop / hitRest
GROOVE · 13
FILL · 15
LAND · 15
RUN · 4
JOIN · 11
LINK · 6
SECTION · 9
WHOLE SONG · 1
ABOUT THIS DRUM PART

How to play Purple Reign on drums

186 bars at 158 BPM -- fast, and 4:43 of it without a break -- on crash, ride, hi-hat, snare, high tom, mid tom, floor tom, kick and hi-hat foot.

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

TEMPO
158 BPM
TIME
4/4
BARS
186
LENGTH
4:43
DIFFICULTY
72/100

hi-hat through bars 1-35, silence through bars 36-38, snare through bars 39-55, silence through bars 56-60, toms through bars 61-62 and hi-hat through bars 63-87, and 5 more changes after that.

The beat

The beat the song is built on is a 2-bar phrase, played through bars 1-3, 5-7 and 9-11, and 5 more places -- 13.6% of every bar the kit plays. This one moves around more than most: the beat is where to start, not the whole job.

    1                2
    1e+a2e+a3e+a4e+a 1e+a2e+a3e+a4e+a
CC |x--x--x---------|x--x--x---------|
HH |----------o-o---|----------------|
SD |x--x--x---x-x---|x--x--x-xx------|
T1 |----------------|----------xx----|
FT |----------------|------------xxx-|
BD |--x--x--x-----x-|--x--x---------x|
Purple Reign -- the groove · x hit · o open hi-hat · g ghost note · r cross-stick · X accent

The fills

15 fills to learn, played 33 times: bars 2, 4, 8, 12, 14, 16 and 27 more.

What the course does

It cuts the song into 58 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 -- A -- 8 exercises, about 37 minutes.
  2. The grooves the song is built on -- K -- 4 exercises, about 22 minutes.
  3. The grooves the song is built on -- AE -- 1 exercise, about 13 minutes.
  4. Through Part F -- 3 exercises, about 29 minutes.
  5. Through Part F -- 3 exercises, about 28 minutes.
  6. Bars 33-60 -- 7 exercises, about 27 minutes.
  7. Through the Break 2 and Part P -- 3 exercises, about 27 minutes.
  8. Through Part P and Part R -- 4 exercises, about 30 minutes.
  9. and 8 more sittings after that.
START THE COURSE ↑

Questions

What BPM is Purple Reign?

158 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 Purple Reign hard to play on drums?

72 out of 100: demanding, mostly on the independence between the hands and the feet. The beat itself is 48 out of 100; the rest of the number is everything around it.

How long is the drum part?

186 bars, about 4:43 at the written tempo. The course breaks it into 58 exercises over 16 sittings, about 27 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 Purple Reign?

15 fills to learn, played 33 times: bars 2, 4, 8, 12, 14, 16 and 27 more.

READ OFF THE SCORE ITSELF · 186 BARS ANALYSED