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The Backwards Pumpkin Song · Dance Gavin Dance

EXERCISE 26 OF 76
Groove O (a two-bar phrase)
80 / 157 BARS COVERED
0 / 76 PASSED · 8 BARS LIT · IN THE PART I
PART C
PART E
PART I
CHORUS
PART W
PART Z
PART AC
PART AE
CHORUS 2
OUTRO
OUTRO 2
10 groovesSICAHW+5Fill into the next barFill that ends a sectionInto the next partStop / hitRest
GROOVE · 19
FILL · 13
LAND · 13
RUN · 1
JOIN · 10
LINK · 10
SECTION · 9
WHOLE SONG · 1
ABOUT THIS DRUM PART

How to play The Backwards Pumpkin Song on drums

157 bars at 156 BPM -- fast, and 4:02 of it without a break -- on crash, ride, hi-hat, snare, high tom, mid tom, floor tom, kick and hi-hat foot.

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

TEMPO
156 BPM
TIME
4/4
BARS
157
LENGTH
4:02
DIFFICULTY
74/100

ride through bars 1-2, snare through bars 3-24, ride through bars 25-39, snare through bars 40-71, toms through bars 72-90 and snare through bars 91-130, and 2 more changes after that.

The beat

The beat the song is built on is one bar, played through bars 57-59, 61-63 and 65-67, and 7 more places -- 15.3% of every bar the kit plays. This one moves around more than most: the beat is where to start, not the whole job.

    57
    1...........2...........3...........4...........
CC |x-----------x-----------x-----------x-----------|
SD |------------------------x-----------x-----------|
BD |x--x--x--x--x--x--x--x--------x-x-x-------------|
The Backwards Pumpkin Song -- the groove · x hit · o open hi-hat · g ghost note · r cross-stick · X accent

The fills

13 fills to learn, played 23 times: bars 2, 14, 18, 22, 28, 32 and 17 more.

What the course does

It cuts the song into 62 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 -- S -- 3 exercises, about 20 minutes.
  2. The grooves the song is built on -- C -- 3 exercises, about 19 minutes.
  3. The grooves the song is built on -- AC -- 3 exercises, about 34 minutes.
  4. Through Part C and Part E -- 3 exercises, about 25 minutes.
  5. Through Part C and Part E -- 4 exercises, about 27 minutes.
  6. Through Part E and Part I -- 4 exercises, about 23 minutes.
  7. Through Part E and Part I -- 5 exercises, about 30 minutes.
  8. Through Part I -- 3 exercises, about 25 minutes. Open above.
  9. and 12 more sittings after that.
START THE COURSE ↑

Questions

What BPM is The Backwards Pumpkin Song?

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

Is The Backwards Pumpkin Song hard to play on drums?

74 out of 100: demanding, mostly on the independence between the hands and the feet. The beat itself is 53 out of 100; the rest of the number is everything around it.

How long is the drum part?

157 bars, about 4:02 at the written tempo. The course breaks it into 62 exercises over 20 sittings, about 26 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 The Backwards Pumpkin Song?

13 fills to learn, played 23 times: bars 2, 14, 18, 22, 28, 32 and 17 more.

READ OFF THE SCORE ITSELF · 157 BARS ANALYSED