ABOUT THIS DRUM PART

How to play Robot Stop on drums

137 bars of 4/4 at a walking 98 BPM, 5:19 of playing, on crash, hi-hat, snare, mid tom, floor tom, kick and hi-hat foot.

89 out of 100. Hard, and what makes it hard is how much of it falls off the beat.

TEMPO: 98 BPM
TIME: 4/4
BARS: 137
LENGTH: 5:19
DIFFICULTY: 89/100

hi-hat through bars 1-4, snare through bars 5-8, hi-hat through bars 9-34, toms through bars 35-36, snare through bars 37-40 and hi-hat through bars 41-55, and 5 more changes after that.

The beat

The beat the song is built on is a 2-bar phrase, played through bars 12-18, 23-25 and 44-46, and 7 more places -- 45.3% of every bar the kit plays. Learn that one and most of the song is already under your hands.

    12                               13
    1.......2.......3.......4....... 1.......2.......3.......4.......
CC |x-------------------------------|--------------------------------|
HH |--x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-|x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-o-------|
SD |----x--x----x-------x--x----x---|----x--x----x-------x--x--xxxxxx|
BD |x-x-----x-x-----x-x-----x-x-----|x-x-----x-x-----x-x-----x-------|

Robot Stop -- the groove · x hit · o open hi-hat · g ghost note · r cross-stick · X accent

The fills

8 fills to learn, played 31 times: bars 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 19 and 25 more.

What the course does

It cuts the song into 31 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.

The grooves the song is built on -- G -- 1 exercise, about 20 minutes.
The grooves the song is built on -- F -- 4 exercises, about 33 minutes.
The grooves the song is built on -- J -- 1 exercise, about 20 minutes. Open above.
Through Part A and Part F -- 4 exercises, about 30 minutes.
Bars 6-19 -- 3 exercises, about 29 minutes.
Through the Chorus and Part J -- 4 exercises, about 18 minutes.
Through Part J -- 1 exercise, about 21 minutes.
Bars 23-40 -- 4 exercises, about 27 minutes.
and 5 more sittings after that.

START THE COURSE ↑

Questions

What BPM is Robot Stop?

98 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 Robot Stop hard to play on drums?

89 out of 100. Hard, and what makes it hard is how much of it falls off the beat. The beat itself is 83 out of 100; the rest of the number is everything around it.

How long is the drum part?

137 bars, about 5:19 at the written tempo. The course breaks it into 31 exercises over 13 sittings, about 24 minutes each.

What do I need on the kit?

crash, hi-hat, snare, 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 Robot Stop?

8 fills to learn, played 31 times: bars 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 19 and 25 more.

READ OFF THE SCORE ITSELF · 137 BARS ANALYSED