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The Black Page 2 · Frank Zappa

EXERCISE 20 OF 55
Groove Y -- Part Y
94 / 175 BARS COVERED
0 / 55 PASSED · 2 BARS LIT · IN THE PART U, PART Y
CHORUS
PART C
PART U
PART Y
PART BG
PART BE
OUTRO 2
9 groovesBCMYBEC+4Fill into the next barFill that ends a sectionInto the next partStop / hitRest
GROOVE · 10
FILL · 10
LAND · 10
RUN · 2
JOIN · 8
LINK · 5
SECTION · 9
WHOLE SONG · 1
ABOUT THIS DRUM PART

How to play The Black Page 2 on drums

175 bars of 4/4 at 120 BPM, about 5:50 of playing, on crash, ride, hi-hat, snare, high tom, mid tom, floor tom, kick and hi-hat foot.

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

TEMPO
120 BPM
TIME
4/4
BARS
175
LENGTH
5:50
DIFFICULTY
73/100

snare through bar 1, hi-hat through bars 2-79, snare through bars 80-81, hi-hat through bars 82-95, snare through bars 96-97 and hi-hat through bars 98-103, and 9 more changes after that.

The beat

The beat the song is built on is one bar, played through bars 2-46 -- 25.7% of every bar the kit plays. That is the spine of it; everything else is what happens around it.

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

The fills

10 fills to learn, played 25 times: bars 48, 49, 50, 51, 52, 53 and 19 more.

What the course does

It cuts the song into 44 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 -- B -- 2 exercises, about 17 minutes.
  2. The grooves the song is built on -- CM -- 2 exercises, about 21 minutes.
  3. The grooves the song is built on -- C -- 3 exercises, about 27 minutes.
  4. Through the Chorus and Part C -- 7 exercises, about 30 minutes.
  5. Through Part C -- 3 exercises, about 21 minutes.
  6. Through Part C -- 2 exercises, about 19 minutes.
  7. Through Part U and Part Y -- 5 exercises, about 28 minutes. Open above.
  8. Bars 68-90 -- 7 exercises, about 31 minutes.
  9. and 7 more sittings after that.
START THE COURSE ↑

Questions

What BPM is The Black Page 2?

120 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 The Black Page 2 hard to play on drums?

73 out of 100: demanding, mostly on the independence between the hands and the feet. The beat itself is 36 out of 100; the rest of the number is everything around it.

How long is the drum part?

175 bars, about 5:50 at the written tempo. The course breaks it into 44 exercises over 15 sittings, about 24 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 Black Page 2?

10 fills to learn, played 25 times: bars 48, 49, 50, 51, 52, 53 and 19 more.

READ OFF THE SCORE ITSELF · 175 BARS ANALYSED