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Tiny Dancer · Elton John

EXERCISE 1 OF 41
Groove N -- Chorus
0 / 97 BARS COVERED
0 / 41 PASSED · 16 BARS LIT · IN THE CHORUS, OUTRO
VERSE
PART G
CHORUS
PART S
PART G
OUTRO
OUTRO 2
7 groovesNCSGJ+2Fill into the next barFill that ends a sectionInto the next partStop / hitRest
GROOVE · 9
FILL · 6
LAND · 6
RUN · 3
JOIN · 7
LINK · 3
SECTION · 6
WHOLE SONG · 1
ABOUT THIS DRUM PART

How to play Tiny Dancer on drums

97 bars, 5:10, at 75 BPM: slow enough that every note is exposed. Crash, hi-hat, snare, high tom, mid tom, floor tom and kick and nothing else.

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

TEMPO
75 BPM
TIME
4/4
BARS
97
LENGTH
5:10
DIFFICULTY
60/100

silence through bars 1-4, hi-hat through bars 5-22, toms through bars 23-25, hi-hat through bars 26-67, toms through bars 68-70 and hi-hat through bars 71-97.

The beat

The beat the song is built on is one bar, played through bars 36-38, 40-42 and 44-45, and 3 more places -- 17.2% of every bar the kit plays. This one moves around more than most: the beat is where to start, not the whole job.

    37
    1e+a2e+a3e+a4e+a
HH |o-x-x-x-o-x-x-x-|
SD |----x-------x---|
BD |x-x----xx-x--x--|
Tiny Dancer -- the groove · x hit · o open hi-hat · g ghost note · r cross-stick · X accent

The fills

6 fills to learn, played 17 times: bars 29, 31, 33, 34, 35, 39 and 11 more.

What the course does

It cuts the song into 34 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 -- 4 exercises, about 25 minutes.
  2. The grooves the song is built on -- C -- 1 exercise, about 15 minutes.
  3. The grooves the song is built on -- S -- 2 exercises, about 21 minutes.
  4. Through the Verse -- 3 exercises, about 30 minutes.
  5. Through the Verse and Part G -- 4 exercises, about 26 minutes.
  6. Bars 22-33 -- 5 exercises, about 32 minutes.
  7. Bars 26-36 -- 6 exercises, about 26 minutes.
  8. Through the Chorus -- 3 exercises, about 23 minutes.
  9. and 3 more sittings after that.
START THE COURSE ↑

Questions

What BPM is Tiny Dancer?

75 BPM, in 4/4, with the time kept in sixteenth notes. Slow enough to hear every mistake, which is why the room lets you sit at the written tempo rather than under it.

Is Tiny Dancer hard to play on drums?

60 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 42 out of 100; the rest of the number is everything around it.

How long is the drum part?

97 bars, about 5:10 at the written tempo. The course breaks it into 34 exercises over 11 sittings, about 24 minutes each.

What do I need on the kit?

crash, 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 Tiny Dancer?

6 fills to learn, played 17 times: bars 29, 31, 33, 34, 35, 39 and 11 more.

READ OFF THE SCORE ITSELF · 97 BARS ANALYSED