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Small Town · John Cougar Mellencamp

EXERCISE 1 OF 45
Groove D -- Part D
0 / 109 BARS COVERED
0 / 45 PASSED · 24 BARS LIT
CHORUS
PART D
PART E
PART L
PART E
OUTRO
OUTRO 2
4 groovesADELFill into the next barFill that ends a sectionInto the next partStop / hitRest
GROOVE · 7
FILL · 9
LAND · 9
RUN · 1
JOIN · 7
LINK · 7
SECTION · 4
WHOLE SONG · 1
ABOUT THIS DRUM PART

How to play Small Town on drums

109 bars of 4/4 at 124 BPM, about 3:31 of playing, on crash, ride, hi-hat, snare, mid tom, floor tom and kick.

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

TEMPO
124 BPM
TIME
4/4
BARS
109
LENGTH
3:31
DIFFICULTY
40/100

snare through bars 1-22, toms through bars 23-24, hi-hat through bars 25-55, snare through bars 56-58, hi-hat through bars 59-60 and ride through bars 61-65, and 4 more changes after that.

The beat

The beat the song is built on is one bar, played through bars 25, 31 and 33-35, and 11 more places -- 22% of every bar the kit plays. This one moves around more than most: the beat is where to start, not the whole job.

    31
    1e+a2e+a3e+a4e+a
HH |x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-|
SD |----x-------x---|
BD |x-------x-----x-|
Small Town -- the groove · x hit · o open hi-hat · g ghost note · r cross-stick · X accent

The fills

9 fills to learn, played 15 times: bars 23, 24, 44, 45, 62, 66 and 9 more.

What the course does

It cuts the song into 35 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, E -- 4 exercises, about 31 minutes.
  2. The grooves the song is built on -- K -- 5 exercises, about 29 minutes.
  3. Through Part E and Part D -- 5 exercises, about 31 minutes.
  4. Through Part D and Part E -- 4 exercises, about 27 minutes.
  5. Through Part E and Part L -- 4 exercises, about 27 minutes.
  6. Through Part L and Part E -- 9 exercises, about 31 minutes.
  7. Through Part E and the Outro -- 5 exercises, about 26 minutes.
  8. The whole song -- 7 exercises, about 31 minutes.
  9. and 1 more sittings after that.
START THE COURSE ↑

Questions

What BPM is Small Town?

124 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 Small Town hard to play on drums?

40 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 39 out of 100; the rest of the number is everything around it.

How long is the drum part?

109 bars, about 3:31 at the written tempo. The course breaks it into 35 exercises over 9 sittings, about 27 minutes each.

What do I need on the kit?

crash, ride, 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 Small Town?

9 fills to learn, played 15 times: bars 23, 24, 44, 45, 62, 66 and 9 more.

READ OFF THE SCORE ITSELF · 109 BARS ANALYSED