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Speed King · Deep Purple

EXERCISE 23 OF 56
Groove AA
176 / 248 BARS COVERED
0 / 56 PASSED · 2 BARS LIT · IN THE CHORUS, PART X
PART A
PART S2
CHORUS
CHORUS 2
PART AN
PART W
PART X
OUTRO
8 groovesZWAANS2+3Fill into the next barFill that ends a sectionInto the next partStop / hitRest
GROOVE · 13
FILL · 7
LAND · 7
RUN · 5
JOIN · 10
LINK · 7
SECTION · 6
WHOLE SONG · 1
ABOUT THIS DRUM PART

How to play Speed King on drums

248 bars of 4/4 at 135 BPM, about 7:22 of playing, on crash, ride, hi-hat, snare, high tom, mid tom, floor tom, kick and hi-hat foot.

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

TEMPO
135 BPM
TIME
4/4
BARS
248
LENGTH
7:22
DIFFICULTY
66/100

snare through bars 1-10, toms through bars 11-13, ride through bars 14-16, toms through bars 17-28, silence through bars 29-55 and snare through bars 56-98, and 8 more changes after that.

The beat

The beat the song is built on is one bar, played through bars 57-58, 61-62 and 79, and 9 more places -- 25.3% of every bar the kit plays. That is the spine of it; everything else is what happens around it.

    113
    1...........2...........3...........4...........
HH |o-----------o-----------o-----------o-----------|
SD |------------x-----------------------x-----------|
BD |x-----------------x-----------x-----------------|
Speed King -- the groove · x hit · o open hi-hat · g ghost note · r cross-stick · X accent

The fills

7 fills to learn, played 15 times: bars 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20 and 9 more.

What the course does

It cuts the song into 48 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 -- W -- 3 exercises, about 20 minutes.
  2. The grooves the song is built on -- Z -- 3 exercises, about 20 minutes.
  3. The grooves the song is built on -- AN -- 2 exercises, about 18 minutes.
  4. Through Part A -- 3 exercises, about 34 minutes.
  5. Through Part A and Part S2 -- 7 exercises, about 30 minutes.
  6. Bars 26-67 -- 2 exercises, about 19 minutes.
  7. Through Part X -- 2 exercises, about 18 minutes.
  8. Through the Chorus -- 2 exercises, about 18 minutes. Open above.
  9. and 7 more sittings after that.
START THE COURSE ↑

Questions

What BPM is Speed King?

135 BPM, in 4/4, with the time kept in thirty-second 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 Speed King hard to play on drums?

66 out of 100: demanding, mostly on the independence between the hands and the feet. The beat itself is 45 out of 100; the rest of the number is everything around it.

How long is the drum part?

248 bars, about 7:22 at the written tempo. The course breaks it into 48 exercises over 15 sittings, about 25 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 Speed King?

7 fills to learn, played 15 times: bars 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20 and 9 more.

READ OFF THE SCORE ITSELF · 248 BARS ANALYSED