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Son Of A Gun · Nirvana

EXERCISE 3 OF 21
Fill at bar 5 (a small one)
93 / 114 BARS COVERED
0 / 21 PASSED · 1 BAR LIT · IN THE PART C
PART C
CHORUS
PART C
CHORUS 2
OUTRO
OUTRO 2
3 groovesFCS1Fill into the next barFill that ends a sectionInto the next partStop / hitRest
GROOVE · 3
FILL · 5
LAND · 5
RUN · 1
JOIN · 2
LINK · 2
SECTION · 2
WHOLE SONG · 1
ABOUT THIS DRUM PART

How to play Son Of A Gun on drums

114 bars at 168 BPM -- fast, and 2:43 of it without a break -- on crash, ride, snare, high tom, mid tom and kick.

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

TEMPO
168 BPM
TIME
4/4
BARS
114
LENGTH
2:43
DIFFICULTY
66/100

silence through bars 1-4, snare through bars 5-17, ride through bars 18-32, snare through bars 33-41, ride through bars 42-73 and snare through bars 74-81, and 1 more change after that.

The beat

The beat the song is built on is one bar, played through bars 19-24, 27-32 and 43-48, and 5 more places -- 61.8% of every bar the kit plays. Learn that one and the song is very nearly finished.

    19
    1e+a2e+a3e+a4e+a
RD |x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-|
SD |x---x---x---x---|
BD |------x---x---x-|
Son Of A Gun -- the groove · x hit · o open hi-hat · g ghost note · r cross-stick · X accent

The fills

5 fills to learn, played 10 times: bars 5, 17, 25, 33, 41, 49 and 4 more.

What the course does

It cuts the song into 15 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 -- F -- 2 exercises, about 30 minutes.
  2. Through Part C -- 6 exercises, about 32 minutes. Open above.
  3. Bars 15-66 -- 9 exercises, about 32 minutes.
  4. The whole song -- 4 exercises, about 24 minutes.
START THE COURSE ↑

Questions

What BPM is Son Of A Gun?

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

Is Son Of A Gun hard to play on drums?

66 out of 100: demanding, mostly on the independence between the hands and the feet. The beat itself is 57 out of 100; the rest of the number is everything around it.

How long is the drum part?

114 bars, about 2:43 at the written tempo. The course breaks it into 15 exercises over 4 sittings, about 30 minutes each.

What do I need on the kit?

crash, ride, snare, high tom, 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 Son Of A Gun?

5 fills to learn, played 10 times: bars 5, 17, 25, 33, 41, 49 and 4 more.

READ OFF THE SCORE ITSELF · 114 BARS ANALYSED