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The Man Who Sold The World · David Bowie

EXERCISE 3 OF 25
Groove D
87 / 122 BARS COVERED
0 / 25 PASSED · 2 BARS LIT · IN THE OUTRO
OUTRO
2 groovesES1Fill into the next barFill that ends a sectionInto the next partStop / hitRest
GROOVE · 6
FILL · 8
LAND · 8
RUN · 1
SECTION · 1
WHOLE SONG · 1
ABOUT THIS DRUM PART

How to play The Man Who Sold The World on drums

122 bars of 4/4 at 118 BPM, about 4:04 of playing, on crash, hi-hat, snare, mid tom, floor tom, kick and hi-hat foot.

39 out of 100 -- a fair first song -- with the independence between the hands and the feet the part that decides it.

TEMPO
118 BPM
TIME
4/4
BARS
122
LENGTH
4:04
DIFFICULTY
39/100

toms through bars 3-87, hi-hat through bars 88-89, toms through bars 90-120 and hi-hat through bars 121-122.

The beat

The beat the song is built on is one bar, played through bars 5-6, 9-19 and 21-31, and 19 more places -- 70.6% of every bar the kit plays. Learn that one and the song is very nearly finished.

    10
    1e+a2e+a3e+a4e+a
SD |----x-------x---|
FT |x---------x-----|
BD |--------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

8 fills to learn, played 9 times: bars 35, 55, 65, 81, 89, 93 and 3 more.

What the course does

It cuts the song into 16 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 -- E -- 2 exercises, about 21 minutes.
  2. Through the Outro -- 3 exercises, about 28 minutes. Open above.
  3. Through the Outro -- 11 exercises, about 31 minutes.
  4. Through the Outro -- 7 exercises, about 28 minutes.
  5. The whole song -- 2 exercises, about 14 minutes.
START THE COURSE ↑

Questions

What BPM is The Man Who Sold The World?

118 BPM, in 4/4, with the time kept in sixteenth 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?

39 out of 100 -- a fair first song -- with the independence between the hands and the feet the part that decides it. The beat itself is 13 out of 100; the rest of the number is everything around it.

How long is the drum part?

122 bars, about 4:04 at the written tempo. The course breaks it into 16 exercises over 5 sittings, about 24 minutes each.

What do I need on the kit?

crash, 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 Man Who Sold The World?

8 fills to learn, played 9 times: bars 35, 55, 65, 81, 89, 93 and 3 more.

READ OFF THE SCORE ITSELF · 122 BARS ANALYSED