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Smells Like Teen Spirit · Nirvana

EXERCISE 26 OF 26
Play the whole song with the record
138 / 141 BARS COVERED
0 / 26 PASSED · 141 BARS LIT
COUNT-IN
CHORUS
PART E
PART F
CHORUS 2
PART E
PART F
CHORUS 3
PART E
PART F
OUTRO
OUTRO 2
5 groovesCEFLS1Fill into the next barFill that ends a sectionInto the next partStop / hitRest
GROOVE · 5
FILL · 4
LAND · 4
RUN · 1
JOIN · 4
LINK · 4
SECTION · 3
WHOLE SONG · 1
ABOUT THIS DRUM PART

How to play Smells Like Teen Spirit on drums

141 bars of 4/4 at 113 BPM, about 4:59 of playing, on crash, hi-hat, snare, mid tom, kick and hi-hat foot.

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

TEMPO
113 BPM
TIME
4/4
BARS
141
LENGTH
4:59
DIFFICULTY
67/100

silence through bars 1-3, hi-hat through bars 4-40, snare through bars 41-44, hi-hat through bars 45-76, snare through bars 77-80 and hi-hat through bars 81-128, and 1 more change after that.

The beat

The beat the song is built on is one bar, played through bars 5-11, 33-43 and 69-79, and 2 more places -- 40.6% of every bar the kit plays. Learn that one and most of the song is already under your hands.

    5
    1e+a2e+a3e+a4e+a
CC |X---------------|
HH |----o---o---o---|
SD |----x--x-x--x---|
BD |x--x----x-xx--x-|
Smells Like Teen Spirit -- the groove · x hit · o open hi-hat · g ghost note · r cross-stick · X accent

The fills

4 fills to learn, played 13 times: bars 4, 32, 44, 45, 46, 47 and 7 more.

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 -- C -- 4 exercises, about 26 minutes.
  2. The grooves the song is built on -- E -- 4 exercises, about 35 minutes.
  3. Through Part E and Part F -- 4 exercises, about 26 minutes.
  4. Through Part F and the Chorus 2 -- 6 exercises, about 27 minutes.
  5. Through the Chorus 3 -- 3 exercises, about 15 minutes.
  6. Through the Outro and the Outro 2 -- 4 exercises, about 30 minutes.
  7. The whole song -- 1 exercise, about 10 minutes. Open above.
START THE COURSE ↑

Questions

What BPM is Smells Like Teen Spirit?

113 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 Smells Like Teen Spirit hard to play on drums?

67 out of 100: demanding, mostly on the independence between the hands and the feet. The beat itself is 50 out of 100; the rest of the number is everything around it.

How long is the drum part?

141 bars, about 4:59 at the written tempo. The course breaks it into 21 exercises over 7 sittings, about 24 minutes each.

What do I need on the kit?

crash, hi-hat, snare, mid 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 Smells Like Teen Spirit?

4 fills to learn, played 13 times: bars 4, 32, 44, 45, 46, 47 and 7 more.

READ OFF THE SCORE ITSELF · 141 BARS ANALYSED