ABOUT THIS DRUM PART

How to play Stars on drums

102 bars of 8/4 -- not four -- at 140 BPM, 5:45 of playing on crash, hi-hat, snare, high tom, mid tom, floor tom, kick and hi-hat foot.

39 out of 100 -- a fair first song -- with the independence between the hands and the feet the part that decides it.

TEMPO: 140 BPM
TIME: 8/4
BARS: 102
LENGTH: 5:45
DIFFICULTY: 39/100

silence through bars 1-9, hi-hat through bars 10-13, snare through bars 14-17, hi-hat through bars 18-23, snare through bars 24-27 and hi-hat through bars 28-51, and 1 more change after that.

The beat

The beat the song is built on is a 2-bar phrase, played through bars 10, 12-13 and 22-23, and 4 more places -- 28.6% of every bar the kit plays. That is the spine of it; everything else is what happens around it.

    12                               13
    1e+a2e+a3e+a4e+a5e+a6e+a7e+a8e+a 1e+a2e+a3e+a4e+a5e+a6e+a7e+a8e+a
CC |x---------------------------x---|--------------------------------|
HH |----o---o---o---o---o---o-------|o---o---o---o-------------------|
SD |----x-------x-------x-------x---|----x-------x-------------------|
T2 |--------------------------------|----------------x-x-x-x---------|
FT |--------------------------------|------------------------x-x-x-x-|
BD |x-------x-x-----x-------x-x-----|x-------x-x-----x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-|

Stars -- the groove · x hit · o open hi-hat · g ghost note · r cross-stick · X accent

The fills

4 fills to learn, played 18 times: bars 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 23 and 12 more.

What the course does

It cuts the song into 19 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.

The grooves the song is built on -- B, J -- 4 exercises, about 31 minutes.
The grooves the song is built on -- H -- 3 exercises, about 18 minutes.
Through the Chorus and Part H -- 4 exercises, about 29 minutes.
Bars 16-22 -- 4 exercises, about 27 minutes.
Through the Chorus 3 and the Outro -- 6 exercises, about 36 minutes.
The whole song -- 3 exercises, about 19 minutes. Open above.

START THE COURSE ↑

Questions

What BPM is Stars?

140 BPM, in 8/4, 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 Stars hard to play on drums?

39 out of 100 -- a fair first song -- with the independence between the hands and the feet the part that decides it. The beat itself is 47 out of 100; the rest of the number is everything around it.

How long is the drum part?

102 bars, about 5:45 at the written tempo. The course breaks it into 19 exercises over 6 sittings, about 27 minutes each.

What do I need on the kit?

crash, 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 Stars?

4 fills to learn, played 18 times: bars 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 23 and 12 more.

READ OFF THE SCORE ITSELF · 102 BARS ANALYSED