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The Prettiest Star · David Bowie

EXERCISE 1 OF 9
Groove B -- Chorus
0 / 89 BARS COVERED
0 / 9 PASSED · 78 BARS LIT
INTRO
CHORUS
CHORUS 2
CHORUS 3
CHORUS 4
OUTRO
7 groovesBS1S11S3S5+2Fill into the next barFill that ends a sectionInto the next partStop / hitRest
GROOVE · 1
RUN · 1
JOIN · 5
SECTION · 1
WHOLE SONG · 1
ABOUT THIS DRUM PART

How to play The Prettiest Star on drums

89 bars of 4/4 at 110 BPM, about 3:14 of playing, on crash, ride, hi-hat, snare and mid tom.

22 out of 100: straightforward, and the one thing to watch is how often it moves around the kit.

TEMPO
110 BPM
TIME
4/4
BARS
89
LENGTH
3:14
DIFFICULTY
22/100

hi-hat through bars 2-89.

The beat

The beat the song is built on is one bar, played through bars 2-7, 10-41 and 44-67, and 3 more places -- 94% of every bar the kit plays. Learn that one and the song is very nearly finished.

    3
    1e+a2e+a3e+a4e+a
HH |x---x---x---x---|
SD |----x-------x---|
T2 |x-------x-------|
The Prettiest Star -- the groove · x hit · o open hi-hat · g ghost note · r cross-stick · X accent

The fills

There are no fills to speak of: the part holds one beat the whole way through.

What the course does

It cuts the song into 8 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 -- B -- 5 exercises, about 27 minutes. Open above.
  2. The whole song -- 4 exercises, about 25 minutes.
START THE COURSE ↑

Questions

What BPM is The Prettiest Star?

110 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 Prettiest Star hard to play on drums?

22 out of 100: straightforward, and the one thing to watch is how often it moves around the kit. The beat itself is 11 out of 100; the rest of the number is everything around it.

How long is the drum part?

89 bars, about 3:14 at the written tempo. The course breaks it into 8 exercises over 2 sittings, about 26 minutes each.

What do I need on the kit?

crash, ride, hi-hat, snare and mid tom. Nothing in the part asks for anything else.

READ OFF THE SCORE ITSELF · 89 BARS ANALYSED