← SONGS

Smokin' · Boston

EXERCISE 1 OF 44
Groove D -- Chorus
0 / 165 BARS COVERED
0 / 44 PASSED · 68 BARS LIT
PART C
CHORUS
PART M
CHORUS 2
CHORUS 3
OUTRO
OUTRO 2
8 groovesDCMAK+3Fill into the next barFill that ends a sectionInto the next partStop / hitRest
GROOVE · 8
FILL · 8
LAND · 8
RUN · 1
JOIN · 8
LINK · 3
SECTION · 7
WHOLE SONG · 1
ABOUT THIS DRUM PART

How to play Smokin' on drums

165 bars at 172 BPM -- fast, and 3:50 of it without a break -- on crash, ride, hi-hat, snare, mid tom and kick.

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

TEMPO
172 BPM
TIME
4/4
BARS
165
LENGTH
3:50
DIFFICULTY
64/100

silence through bars 1-4, hi-hat through bars 5-8, ride through bars 9-10, hi-hat through bars 11-12, ride through bars 13-14 and hi-hat through bars 15-16, and 19 more changes after that.

The beat

The beat the song is built on is one bar, played through bars 9, 13 and 27, and 14 more places -- 42.2% of every bar the kit plays. Learn that one and most of the song is already under your hands.

    44
    1.....2.....3.....4.....
RD |x-----x-----x-----x-----|
SD |------x-----------x-----|
BD |x--x--------x--x--------|
Smokin' -- the groove · x hit · o open hi-hat · g ghost note · r cross-stick · X accent

The fills

8 fills to learn, played 19 times: bars 4, 17, 19, 25, 26, 29 and 13 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, C -- 2 exercises, about 28 minutes. Open above.
  2. The grooves the song is built on -- G -- 5 exercises, about 35 minutes.
  3. Through Part C -- 5 exercises, about 30 minutes.
  4. Through Part C and the Chorus -- 4 exercises, about 29 minutes.
  5. Through the Chorus and Part M -- 5 exercises, about 32 minutes.
  6. Through Part M and the Chorus 2 -- 7 exercises, about 29 minutes.
  7. Through the Chorus 2 and Part S -- 4 exercises, about 28 minutes.
  8. Bars 101-136 -- 7 exercises, about 27 minutes.
  9. and 1 more sittings after that.
START THE COURSE ↑

Questions

What BPM is Smokin'?

172 BPM, in 4/4, with the time kept in thirty-second notes. At that speed the thirty-second notes are the whole difficulty, so the room will take it down to a quarter of it and climb back.

Is Smokin' hard to play on drums?

64 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 47 out of 100; the rest of the number is everything around it.

How long is the drum part?

165 bars, about 3:50 at the written tempo. The course breaks it into 35 exercises over 9 sittings, about 30 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 Smokin'?

8 fills to learn, played 19 times: bars 4, 17, 19, 25, 26, 29 and 13 more.

READ OFF THE SCORE ITSELF · 165 BARS ANALYSED