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Spirit · Al Jarreau

Spirit · Al Jarreau
EXERCISE 24 OF 47
Groove P -- Part P
46 / 80 BARS COVERED
0 / 47 PASSED · 3 BARS LIT · IN THE PART P
PART C
CHORUS
PART P
PART J
OUTRO
OUTRO 2
6 groovesGPJAHC+1Fill into the next barFill that ends a sectionInto the next partStop / hitRest
GROOVE · 9
FILL · 11
LAND · 11
RUN · 1
JOIN · 5
LINK · 4
SECTION · 5
WHOLE SONG · 1
ABOUT THIS DRUM PART

How to play Spirit on drums

80 bars, 4:24, at 72 BPM: slow enough that every note is exposed. Crash, ride, hi-hat, snare, mid tom, floor tom, kick and hi-hat foot and nothing else.

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

TEMPO
72 BPM
TIME
4/4
BARS
80
LENGTH
4:24
DIFFICULTY
49/100

hi-hat through bars 2-35, ride through bars 36-48 and hi-hat through bars 49-80.

The beat

The beat the song is built on is one bar, played through bars 10-24, 29 and 34, and 2 more places -- 27.8% of every bar the kit plays. That is the spine of it; everything else is what happens around it.

    11
    1e+a2e+a3e+a4e+a
HH |x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-|
SD |----x-------x---|
BD |x-------x-------|
Spirit -- the groove · x hit · o open hi-hat · g ghost note · r cross-stick · X accent

The fills

11 fills to learn, played 19 times: bars 5, 9, 26, 28, 30, 33 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 -- G, C -- 4 exercises, about 27 minutes.
  2. The grooves the song is built on -- B -- 3 exercises, about 19 minutes.
  3. Through Part C and the Chorus -- 4 exercises, about 28 minutes.
  4. Bars 26-53 -- 5 exercises, about 27 minutes.
  5. Through the Chorus and Part P -- 7 exercises, about 21 minutes.
  6. Through the Chorus and Part P -- 5 exercises, about 27 minutes. Open above.
  7. Through Part P -- 5 exercises, about 23 minutes.
  8. Through Part P and Part J -- 5 exercises, about 28 minutes.
  9. and 3 more sittings after that.
START THE COURSE ↑

Questions

What BPM is Spirit?

72 BPM, in 4/4, with the time kept in sixteenth notes. Slow enough to hear every mistake, which is why the room lets you sit at the written tempo rather than under it.

Is Spirit hard to play on drums?

49 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 20 out of 100; the rest of the number is everything around it.

How long is the drum part?

80 bars, about 4:24 at the written tempo. The course breaks it into 35 exercises over 11 sittings, about 24 minutes each.

What do I need on the kit?

crash, ride, hi-hat, snare, 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 Spirit?

11 fills to learn, played 19 times: bars 5, 9, 26, 28, 30, 33 and 13 more.

READ OFF THE SCORE ITSELF · 80 BARS ANALYSED