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Radio Free Europe · R.E.M.

EXERCISE 17 OF 24
Run L1 · Outro (bars 100-108)
116 / 119 BARS COVERED
0 / 24 PASSED · 9 BARS LIT · IN THE OUTRO
CHORUS
OUTRO
OUTRO 2
2 groovesBLFill into the next barFill that ends a sectionInto the next partStop / hitRest
GROOVE · 6
FILL · 5
LAND · 5
RUN · 1
JOIN · 2
LINK · 2
SECTION · 2
WHOLE SONG · 1
ABOUT THIS DRUM PART

How to play Radio Free Europe on drums

119 bars of 4/4 at 154 BPM, about 3:05 of playing, on crash, hi-hat, snare, mid tom, floor tom and kick.

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

TEMPO
154 BPM
TIME
4/4
BARS
119
LENGTH
3:05
DIFFICULTY
54/100

toms through bar 1 and hi-hat through bars 2-119.

The beat

The beat the song is built on is one bar, played through bars 2-16, 20 and 22, and 22 more places -- 58% of every bar the kit plays. Learn that one and most of the song is already under your hands.

    2
    1e+a2e+a3e+a4e+a
HH |x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-|
SD |----x-------x---|
BD |x-------x-------|
Radio Free Europe -- the groove · x hit · o open hi-hat · g ghost note · r cross-stick · X accent

The fills

5 fills to learn, played 10 times: bars 17, 53, 63, 89, 93, 99 and 4 more.

What the course does

It cuts the song into 18 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, E -- 3 exercises, about 30 minutes.
  2. Through the Chorus -- 5 exercises, about 26 minutes.
  3. Through the Chorus -- 2 exercises, about 29 minutes.
  4. Through the Chorus and the Outro -- 6 exercises, about 35 minutes.
  5. The whole song -- 6 exercises, about 31 minutes. Open above.
  6. Through the Outro 2 -- 2 exercises, about 6 minutes.
START THE COURSE ↑

Questions

What BPM is Radio Free Europe?

154 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 Radio Free Europe hard to play on drums?

54 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 35 out of 100; the rest of the number is everything around it.

How long is the drum part?

119 bars, about 3:05 at the written tempo. The course breaks it into 18 exercises over 6 sittings, about 26 minutes each.

What do I need on the kit?

crash, hi-hat, snare, 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 Radio Free Europe?

5 fills to learn, played 10 times: bars 17, 53, 63, 89, 93, 99 and 4 more.

READ OFF THE SCORE ITSELF · 119 BARS ANALYSED