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The man who sold the world · David Bowie

EXERCISE 18 OF 30
3-bar fill at bar 79
91 / 125 BARS COVERED
0 / 30 PASSED · 3 BARS LIT · IN THE CHORUS
CHORUS
OUTRO 2
4 groovesDORS1Fill into the next barFill that ends a sectionInto the next partStop / hitRest
GROOVE · 10
FILL · 6
LAND · 6
RUN · 2
JOIN · 2
SECTION · 3
WHOLE SONG · 1
ABOUT THIS DRUM PART

How to play The man who sold the world on drums

125 bars of 4/4 at 116 BPM, about 4:14 of playing, on crash, ride, hi-hat, snare, high tom, mid tom, floor tom and kick.

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

TEMPO
116 BPM
TIME
4/4
BARS
125
LENGTH
4:14
DIFFICULTY
56/100

silence through bars 1-4, hi-hat through bars 5-32, snare through bars 33-35, hi-hat through bars 36-63, snare through bars 64-66 and hi-hat through bars 67-79, and 2 more changes after that.

The beat

The beat the song is built on is one bar, played through bars 6, 10-18 and 22-25, and 9 more places -- 28.3% of every bar the kit plays. That is the spine of it; everything else is what happens around it.

    23
    1.....2.....3.....4.....
HH |x--x--x--x--x--x--x--x--|
SD |------x-----------x-----|
BD |x--------x--x--x--------|
The man who sold the world -- the groove · x hit · o open hi-hat · g ghost note · r cross-stick · X accent

The fills

6 fills to learn, played 10 times: bars 4, 33, 35, 37, 64, 66 and 4 more.

What the course does

It cuts the song into 23 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 -- D, O -- 2 exercises, about 27 minutes.
  2. The grooves the song is built on -- C -- 4 exercises, about 24 minutes.
  3. Through the Chorus -- 2 exercises, about 29 minutes.
  4. Through the Chorus -- 7 exercises, about 29 minutes.
  5. Bars 60-90 -- 2 exercises, about 29 minutes.
  6. Through the Chorus and the Outro -- 7 exercises, about 26 minutes. Open above.
  7. Through the Outro and the Outro 2 -- 2 exercises, about 18 minutes.
  8. Through the Outro 2 -- 3 exercises, about 22 minutes.
  9. and 1 more sittings after that.
START THE COURSE ↑

Questions

What BPM is The man who sold the world?

116 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 man who sold the world hard to play on drums?

56 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 37 out of 100; the rest of the number is everything around it.

How long is the drum part?

125 bars, about 4:14 at the written tempo. The course breaks it into 23 exercises over 9 sittings, about 24 minutes each.

What do I need on the kit?

crash, ride, hi-hat, snare, high tom, mid tom, floor tom and kick. That is most of a full kit; the part moves around it rather than sitting in one place.

How many fills are in The man who sold the world?

6 fills to learn, played 10 times: bars 4, 33, 35, 37, 64, 66 and 4 more.

READ OFF THE SCORE ITSELF · 125 BARS ANALYSED