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Rocky Mountain Way · Joe Walsh

Rocky Mountain Way · Joe Walsh
EXERCISE 5 OF 27
Fill at bar 10 (a small one)
51 / 111 BARS COVERED
0 / 27 PASSED · 1 BAR LIT · IN THE PART E
COUNT-IN
PART E
CHORUS
PART G
OUTRO
BREAK
5 groovesDS8GS1EFill into the next barFill that ends a sectionInto the next partStop / hitRest
GROOVE · 6
FILL · 5
LAND · 5
RUN · 1
JOIN · 4
LINK · 2
SECTION · 3
WHOLE SONG · 1
ABOUT THIS DRUM PART

How to play Rocky Mountain Way on drums

111 bars of 6/4 -- not four -- at 128 BPM, 5:12 of playing on crash, ride, hi-hat, snare, mid tom and kick.

43 out of 100 -- a fair first song -- with the independence between the hands and the feet the part that decides it.

TEMPO
128 BPM
TIME
6/4
BARS
111
LENGTH
5:12
DIFFICULTY
43/100

silence through bars 1-11, hi-hat through bars 12-27, ride through bars 28-35, hi-hat through bars 36-39, ride through bars 40-48 and hi-hat through bars 49-52, and 3 more changes after that.

The beat

The beat the song is built on is one bar, played through bars 12-13, 16 and 19-27, and 9 more places -- 41.5% of every bar the kit plays. Learn that one and most of the song is already under your hands.

    12
    1e+a2e+a3e+a4e+a5e+a6e+a
HH |x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-|
SD |------x-----------x-----|
BD |x---x-----x-x---x-----x-|
Rocky Mountain Way -- the groove · x hit · o open hi-hat · g ghost note · r cross-stick · X accent

The fills

5 fills to learn, played 6 times: bars 10, 34, 39, 40, 51 and 53.

What the course does

It cuts the song into 21 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 -- D, G -- 2 exercises, about 28 minutes.
  2. Bars 15-31 -- 2 exercises, about 29 minutes.
  3. Bars 10-35 -- 7 exercises, about 24 minutes. Open above.
  4. Through the Chorus 2 -- 2 exercises, about 29 minutes.
  5. Through Part G and the Chorus 2 -- 6 exercises, about 27 minutes.
  6. Bars 48-75 -- 7 exercises, about 26 minutes.
  7. The whole song -- 1 exercise, about 10 minutes.
START THE COURSE ↑

Questions

What BPM is Rocky Mountain Way?

128 BPM, in 6/4, 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 Rocky Mountain Way hard to play on drums?

43 out of 100 -- a fair first song -- with the independence between the hands and the feet the part that decides it. The beat itself is 46 out of 100; the rest of the number is everything around it.

How long is the drum part?

111 bars, about 5:12 at the written tempo. The course breaks it into 21 exercises over 7 sittings, about 25 minutes each.

What do I need on the kit?

crash, ride, hi-hat, snare, mid 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 Rocky Mountain Way?

5 fills to learn, played 6 times: bars 10, 34, 39, 40, 51 and 53.

READ OFF THE SCORE ITSELF · 111 BARS ANALYSED