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Thin Air · Citizen

EXERCISE 10 OF 38
Join Chorus to Part F (bars 15-17)
59 / 90 BARS COVERED
0 / 38 PASSED · 3 BARS LIT · IN THE CHORUS, PART F
COUNT-IN
CHORUS
PART F
CHORUS 2
PART J
PART F
PART P
OUTRO
OUTRO 2
7 groovesCPFJS1+2Fill into the next barFill that ends a sectionInto the next partStop / hitRest
GROOVE · 5
FILL · 8
LAND · 8
RUN · 2
JOIN · 6
LINK · 4
SECTION · 4
WHOLE SONG · 1
ABOUT THIS DRUM PART

How to play Thin Air on drums

90 bars of 4/4 at 125 BPM, about 2:53 of playing, on crash, ride, hi-hat, snare, high tom, mid tom, floor tom and kick.

45 out of 100, a step up from a first song, and the work is in the independence between the hands and the feet.

TEMPO
125 BPM
TIME
4/4
BARS
90
LENGTH
2:53
DIFFICULTY
45/100

silence through bars 1-8, hi-hat through bars 9-40, toms through bars 41-48, hi-hat through bars 49-58, snare through bars 59-60 and ride through bars 61-69, and 3 more changes after that.

The beat

The beat the song is built on is one bar, played through bars 9-11, 13-15 and 25-27, and 3 more places -- 22.5% of every bar the kit plays. This one moves around more than most: the beat is where to start, not the whole job.

    10
    1e+a2e+a3e+a4e+a
HH |x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-|
SD |----x-x-----x---|
BD |x---------x---x-|
Thin Air -- the groove · x hit · o open hi-hat · g ghost note · r cross-stick · X accent

The fills

8 fills to learn, played 19 times: bars 8, 12, 20, 24, 28, 36 and 13 more.

What the course does

It cuts the song into 29 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 -- C -- 6 exercises, about 26 minutes.
  2. The grooves the song is built on -- P, F -- 3 exercises, about 29 minutes.
  3. Bars 13-28 -- 6 exercises, about 25 minutes. Open above.
  4. Through the Chorus 2 and Part J -- 6 exercises, about 26 minutes.
  5. Bars 37-61 -- 8 exercises, about 32 minutes.
  6. Bars 59-77 -- 6 exercises, about 30 minutes.
  7. The whole song -- 3 exercises, about 19 minutes.
START THE COURSE ↑

Questions

What BPM is Thin Air?

125 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 Thin Air hard to play on drums?

45 out of 100, a step up from a first song, and the work is in the independence between the hands and the feet. The beat itself is 38 out of 100; the rest of the number is everything around it.

How long is the drum part?

90 bars, about 2:53 at the written tempo. The course breaks it into 29 exercises over 7 sittings, about 27 minutes each.

What do I need on the kit?

crash, ride, hi-hat, snare, high tom, mid tom, floor tom and kick. That is most of a full kit; the part moves around it rather than sitting in one place.

How many fills are in Thin Air?

8 fills to learn, played 19 times: bars 8, 12, 20, 24, 28, 36 and 13 more.

READ OFF THE SCORE ITSELF · 90 BARS ANALYSED