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The Shortest Straw · Metallica

EXERCISE 5 OF 83
Groove E -- Part E (a two-bar phrase)
76 / 241 BARS COVERED
0 / 83 PASSED · 29 BARS LIT · IN THE PART E, PART I
PART E
PART I
CHORUS
PART E
PART E
CHORUS 4
PART I
PART E
11 groovesRIUEX+6Fill into the next barFill that ends a sectionInto the next partStop / hitRest
GROOVE · 12
FILL · 18
LAND · 18
RUN · 4
JOIN · 16
LINK · 9
SECTION · 5
WHOLE SONG · 1
ABOUT THIS DRUM PART

How to play The Shortest Straw on drums

241 bars of 4/4 at 140 BPM, about 6:41 of playing, on crash, hi-hat, snare, high tom, mid tom, floor tom, kick and hi-hat foot.

89 out of 100. Hard, and what makes it hard is the independence between the hands and the feet.

TEMPO
140 BPM
TIME
4/4
BARS
241
LENGTH
6:41
DIFFICULTY
89/100

toms through bars 1-9, hi-hat through bars 10-30, silence through bars 31-33, hi-hat through bars 34-239 and snare through bars 240-241.

The beat

The beat the song is built on is one bar, played through bars 36, 38-39 and 43-44, and 17 more places -- 18.2% of every bar the kit plays. This one moves around more than most: the beat is where to start, not the whole job.

    38
    1.......2.......3.......4.......
HH |o---o---o---o---o---o---o---o---|
SD |----x-------x-------x-------x---|
BD |x---------xx----x-----x---x-----|
The Shortest Straw -- the groove · x hit · o open hi-hat · g ghost note · r cross-stick · X accent

The fills

18 fills to learn, played 33 times: bars 23, 24, 25, 26, 41, 57 and 27 more.

What the course does

It cuts the song into 64 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 -- R -- 1 exercise, about 19 minutes.
  2. The grooves the song is built on -- U -- 3 exercises, about 29 minutes.
  3. The grooves the song is built on -- E -- 3 exercises, about 28 minutes. Open above.
  4. Through Part E -- 1 exercise, about 16 minutes.
  5. Through Part E and Part I -- 4 exercises, about 30 minutes.
  6. Bars 18-45 -- 3 exercises, about 28 minutes.
  7. Bars 37-58 -- 3 exercises, about 25 minutes.
  8. Through the Chorus -- 5 exercises, about 28 minutes.
  9. and 13 more sittings after that.
START THE COURSE ↑

Questions

What BPM is The Shortest Straw?

140 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 Shortest Straw hard to play on drums?

89 out of 100. Hard, and what makes it hard is the independence between the hands and the feet. The beat itself is 75 out of 100; the rest of the number is everything around it.

How long is the drum part?

241 bars, about 6:41 at the written tempo. The course breaks it into 64 exercises over 21 sittings, about 25 minutes each.

What do I need on the kit?

crash, hi-hat, snare, high tom, 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 Shortest Straw?

18 fills to learn, played 33 times: bars 23, 24, 25, 26, 41, 57 and 27 more.

READ OFF THE SCORE ITSELF · 241 BARS ANALYSED