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The Zephyr Song · Red Hot Chili Peppers

EXERCISE 9 OF 24
Run D1 · Verse (bars 9-25)
88 / 111 BARS COVERED
0 / 24 PASSED · 17 BARS LIT · IN THE VERSE
VERSE
CHORUS
VERSE 2
CHORUS 2
OUTRO
OUTRO 2
5 groovesFDHBS1Fill into the next barFill that ends a sectionInto the next partStop / hitRest
GROOVE · 5
FILL · 2
LAND · 2
RUN · 1
JOIN · 5
LINK · 4
SECTION · 4
WHOLE SONG · 1
ABOUT THIS DRUM PART

How to play The Zephyr Song on drums

111 bars of 4/4 at 117 BPM, about 3:48 of playing, on crash, ride, hi-hat, snare, high tom, floor tom, kick and hi-hat foot.

77 out of 100: demanding, mostly on the independence between the hands and the feet.

TEMPO
117 BPM
TIME
4/4
BARS
111
LENGTH
3:48
DIFFICULTY
77/100

silence through bars 1-3, hi-hat through bars 4-25, ride through bars 26-33, hi-hat through bars 34-46, ride through bars 47-62 and hi-hat through bars 63-78, and 1 more change after that.

The beat

The beat the song is built on is one bar, played through bars 26-32, 47-61 and 79-109 -- 49.1% of every bar the kit plays. Learn that one and most of the song is already under your hands.

    27
    1e+a2e+a3e+a4e+a
RD |x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-|
SD |----x-------x---|
BD |x--x--x---x-----|
The Zephyr Song -- the groove · x hit · o open hi-hat · g ghost note · r cross-stick · X accent

The fills

2 fills to learn, played 4 times: bars 25, 46, 62 and 110.

What the course does

It cuts the song into 21 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 -- F -- 1 exercise, about 14 minutes.
  2. The grooves the song is built on -- D -- 2 exercises, about 23 minutes.
  3. Bars 4-26 -- 5 exercises, about 29 minutes.
  4. Through the Verse and the Chorus -- 4 exercises, about 29 minutes. Open above.
  5. Bars 30-64 -- 5 exercises, about 32 minutes.
  6. Bars 59-111 -- 6 exercises, about 28 minutes.
  7. The whole song -- 1 exercise, about 10 minutes.
START THE COURSE ↑

Questions

What BPM is The Zephyr Song?

117 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 Zephyr Song hard to play on drums?

77 out of 100: demanding, mostly on the independence between the hands and the feet. The beat itself is 46 out of 100; the rest of the number is everything around it.

How long is the drum part?

111 bars, about 3:48 at the written tempo. The course breaks it into 21 exercises over 7 sittings, about 24 minutes each.

What do I need on the kit?

crash, ride, hi-hat, snare, high 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 Zephyr Song?

2 fills to learn, played 4 times: bars 25, 46, 62 and 110.

READ OFF THE SCORE ITSELF · 111 BARS ANALYSED