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The Lady In My Life · Michael Jackson

EXERCISE 1 OF 24
Groove L -- Verse
0 / 80 BARS COVERED
0 / 24 PASSED · 37 BARS LIT · IN THE VERSE, VERSE 2
PART A
PART C
CHORUS
VERSE
OUTRO
VERSE 2
5 groovesLHACJFill into the next barFill that ends a sectionInto the next partStop / hitRest
GROOVE · 8
FILL · 1
LAND · 1
RUN · 2
JOIN · 5
LINK · 1
SECTION · 5
WHOLE SONG · 1
ABOUT THIS DRUM PART

How to play The Lady In My Life on drums

80 bars, 4:23, at 73 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.

51 out of 100, a step up from a first song, and the work is in how much of it falls off the beat.

TEMPO
73 BPM
TIME
4/4
BARS
80
LENGTH
4:23
DIFFICULTY
51/100

ride through bars 1-4, hi-hat through bars 5-26, ride through bars 27-28, hi-hat through bars 29-44, ride through bars 45-48 and hi-hat through bars 49-80.

The beat

The beat the song is built on is one bar, played through bars 30-31, 34 and 39, and 3 more places -- 46.3% of every bar the kit plays. Learn that one and most of the song is already under your hands.

    49
    1e+a2e+a3e+a4e+a
HH |xxxxxxxxxxxxxoxx|
SD |----x-------x---|
BD |x------xx-------|
The Lady In My Life -- the groove · x hit · o open hi-hat · g ghost note · r cross-stick · X accent

The fills

1 fill to learn, played 1 time: bar 32.

What the course does

It cuts the song into 22 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 -- L, H -- 3 exercises, about 30 minutes. Open above.
  2. The grooves the song is built on -- J -- 4 exercises, about 35 minutes.
  3. Bars 1-28 -- 5 exercises, about 22 minutes.
  4. Through the Chorus and the Verse -- 2 exercises, about 20 minutes.
  5. Through the Chorus and the Verse -- 4 exercises, about 25 minutes.
  6. Bars 40-49 -- 4 exercises, about 29 minutes.
  7. The whole song -- 2 exercises, about 14 minutes.
START THE COURSE ↑

Questions

What BPM is The Lady In My Life?

73 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 Lady In My Life hard to play on drums?

51 out of 100, a step up from a first song, and the work is in how much of it falls off the beat. The beat itself is 42 out of 100; the rest of the number is everything around it.

How long is the drum part?

80 bars, about 4:23 at the written tempo. The course breaks it into 22 exercises over 7 sittings, about 25 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 The Lady In My Life?

1 fill to learn, played 1 time: bar 32.

READ OFF THE SCORE ITSELF · 80 BARS ANALYSED