← SONGS

Smooth Criminal · Alien Ant Farm

EXERCISE 3 OF 38
Groove C -- Part C
43 / 109 BARS COVERED
0 / 38 PASSED · 9 BARS LIT
PART C
PART D
CHORUS
PART N
CHORUS 2
PART N
CHORUS 3
OUTRO
OUTRO 2
6 groovesINDBAA+1Fill into the next barFill that ends a sectionInto the next partStop / hitRest
GROOVE · 13
FILL · 3
LAND · 3
RUN · 2
JOIN · 7
LINK · 3
SECTION · 6
WHOLE SONG · 1
ABOUT THIS DRUM PART

How to play Smooth Criminal on drums

109 bars of 4/4 at 126 BPM, about 3:26 of playing, on crash, ride, hi-hat, snare, high tom, mid tom, floor tom, kick and hi-hat foot.

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

TEMPO
126 BPM
TIME
4/4
BARS
109
LENGTH
3:26
DIFFICULTY
76/100

hi-hat through bars 1-25, ride through bars 26-33, hi-hat through bars 34-57, ride through bars 58-65, hi-hat through bars 66-85 and ride through bars 86-101, and 1 more change after that.

The beat

The beat the song is built on is a 2-bar phrase, played through bars 18-23, 34-39 and 50-55, and 2 more places -- 20.2% of every bar the kit plays. This one moves around more than most: the beat is where to start, not the whole job.

    18               19
    1e+a2e+a3e+a4e+a 1e+a2e+a3e+a4e+a
CC |----------------|----------x---x-|
RD |--x-------------|----------------|
HH |------o---o---o-|--o---o---------|
SD |-x--x--g----x--g|----x--g----x---|
BD |--x--x--x-x-----|x-x-----x-x---x-|
Smooth Criminal -- the groove · x hit · o open hi-hat · g ghost note · r cross-stick · X accent

The fills

3 fills to learn, played 4 times: bars 24, 56, 100 and 109.

What the course does

It cuts the song into 34 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 -- I -- 1 exercise, about 15 minutes.
  2. The grooves the song is built on -- N -- 1 exercise, about 16 minutes.
  3. The grooves the song is built on -- C -- 1 exercise, about 15 minutes. Open above.
  4. Through Part C -- 2 exercises, about 20 minutes.
  5. Bars 3-14 -- 4 exercises, about 30 minutes.
  6. Through Part D and the Chorus -- 3 exercises, about 26 minutes.
  7. Through the Chorus -- 3 exercises, about 23 minutes.
  8. Through the Chorus and Part N -- 3 exercises, about 27 minutes.
  9. and 7 more sittings after that.
START THE COURSE ↑

Questions

What BPM is Smooth Criminal?

126 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 Smooth Criminal hard to play on drums?

76 out of 100: demanding, mostly on the independence between the hands and the feet. The beat itself is 51 out of 100; the rest of the number is everything around it.

How long is the drum part?

109 bars, about 3:26 at the written tempo. The course breaks it into 34 exercises over 15 sittings, about 22 minutes each.

What do I need on the kit?

crash, ride, hi-hat, snare, high tom, 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 Smooth Criminal?

3 fills to learn, played 4 times: bars 24, 56, 100 and 109.

READ OFF THE SCORE ITSELF · 109 BARS ANALYSED