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The Chain · Fleetwood Mac

EXERCISE 7 OF 36
Groove C (a two-bar phrase)
72 / 116 BARS COVERED
0 / 36 PASSED · 5 BARS LIT · IN THE PART B
CHORUS
PART B
CHORUS 2
PART B
PART P
OUTRO
OUTRO 2
5 groovesABSPUFill into the next barFill that ends a sectionInto the next partStop / hitRest
GROOVE · 9
FILL · 6
LAND · 6
RUN · 1
JOIN · 4
LINK · 4
SECTION · 5
WHOLE SONG · 1
ABOUT THIS DRUM PART

How to play The Chain on drums

116 bars, 6:11, at 75 BPM: slow enough that every note is exposed. Crash, ride, hi-hat, snare, high tom, mid tom, floor tom, kick and hi-hat foot and nothing else.

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

TEMPO
75 BPM
TIME
4/4
BARS
116
LENGTH
6:11
DIFFICULTY
46/100

kick and crashes through bars 1-15, toms through bars 16-27, kick and crashes through bars 28-39, toms through bars 40-54, ride through bars 55-58 and toms through bars 59-74, and 1 more change after that.

The beat

The beat the song is built on is one bar, played through bars 1-16, 27-31 and 33-39 -- 24.3% of every bar the kit plays. This one moves around more than most: the beat is where to start, not the whole job.

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

The fills

6 fills to learn, played 12 times: bars 19, 20, 24, 43, 44, 48 and 6 more.

What the course does

It cuts the song into 29 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 -- A, S, P -- 3 exercises, about 27 minutes.
  2. Through Part B -- 3 exercises, about 17 minutes.
  3. Through Part B and the Chorus 2 -- 5 exercises, about 30 minutes. Open above.
  4. Through the Chorus 2 and Part B -- 8 exercises, about 28 minutes.
  5. Through Part B and Part P -- 6 exercises, about 29 minutes.
  6. Through Part P and the Outro -- 3 exercises, about 28 minutes.
  7. Bars 76-107 -- 6 exercises, about 34 minutes.
  8. The whole song -- 2 exercises, about 14 minutes.
START THE COURSE ↑

Questions

What BPM is The Chain?

75 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 The Chain hard to play on drums?

46 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 0 out of 100; the rest of the number is everything around it.

How long is the drum part?

116 bars, about 6:11 at the written tempo. The course breaks it into 29 exercises over 8 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 Chain?

6 fills to learn, played 12 times: bars 19, 20, 24, 43, 44, 48 and 6 more.

READ OFF THE SCORE ITSELF · 116 BARS ANALYSED