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The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down · The Band

EXERCISE 21 OF 49
Fill at bar 49 and 82 (a small one)
81 / 111 BARS COVERED
0 / 49 PASSED · 2 BARS LIT · IN THE PART F, CHORUS 3
CHORUS
PART F
CHORUS 2
PART F
PART N
CHORUS 3
PART N
PART I
OUTRO
6 groovesBFNIS13+1Fill into the next barFill that ends a sectionInto the next partStop / hitRest
GROOVE · 8
FILL · 11
LAND · 11
RUN · 3
JOIN · 7
LINK · 3
SECTION · 5
WHOLE SONG · 1
ABOUT THIS DRUM PART

How to play The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down on drums

111 bars of 4/4 at 127 BPM, about 3:29 of playing, on crash, hi-hat, snare, mid tom, floor tom, kick and hi-hat foot.

63 out of 100, a step up from a first song, and the work is in how fine the subdivision is.

TEMPO
127 BPM
TIME
4/4
BARS
111
LENGTH
3:29
DIFFICULTY
63/100

toms through bar 1, hi-hat through bars 2-21, snare through bars 22-23, hi-hat through bars 24-25, snare through bars 26-27 and hi-hat through bars 28-30, and 9 more changes after that.

The beat

The beat the song is built on is one bar, played through bars 27-30, 58-61 and 83-84, and 5 more places -- 21.8% of every bar the kit plays. This one moves around more than most: the beat is where to start, not the whole job.

    91
    1...............2...............3...............4...............
CC |x-------------------------------x-------------------------------|
SD |--------------------------------x-------------------------g-----|
BD |x---------------------------------------------------------------|
The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down -- the groove · x hit · o open hi-hat · g ghost note · r cross-stick · X accent

The fills

11 fills to learn, played 25 times: bars 17, 18, 20, 21, 22, 26 and 19 more.

What the course does

It cuts the song into 37 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 -- N, B -- 2 exercises, about 24 minutes.
  2. The grooves the song is built on -- F -- 6 exercises, about 35 minutes.
  3. Through the Chorus -- 3 exercises, about 30 minutes.
  4. Bars 9-27 -- 4 exercises, about 27 minutes.
  5. Bars 27-62 -- 5 exercises, about 33 minutes.
  6. Bars 41-59 -- 6 exercises, about 25 minutes. Open above.
  7. Through Part N and the Chorus 3 -- 4 exercises, about 18 minutes.
  8. Through the Chorus 3 and Part N -- 6 exercises, about 35 minutes.
  9. and 2 more sittings after that.
START THE COURSE ↑

Questions

What BPM is The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down?

127 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 Night They Drove Old Dixie Down hard to play on drums?

63 out of 100, a step up from a first song, and the work is in how fine the subdivision is. The beat itself is 40 out of 100; the rest of the number is everything around it.

How long is the drum part?

111 bars, about 3:29 at the written tempo. The course breaks it into 37 exercises over 10 sittings, about 28 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 Night They Drove Old Dixie Down?

11 fills to learn, played 25 times: bars 17, 18, 20, 21, 22, 26 and 19 more.

READ OFF THE SCORE ITSELF · 111 BARS ANALYSED