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Today · Jefferson Airplane

EXERCISE 29 OF 36
Groove X
52 / 72 BARS COVERED
0 / 36 PASSED · 3 BARS LIT · IN THE OUTRO 2
PART A
PART F
PART G
OUTRO
OUTRO 2
7 groovesOGYFA+2Fill into the next barFill that ends a sectionInto the next partStop / hitRest
GROOVE · 10
FILL · 6
LAND · 6
RUN · 1
JOIN · 4
LINK · 3
SECTION · 5
WHOLE SONG · 1
ABOUT THIS DRUM PART

How to play Today on drums

72 bars of 4/4 at a walking 85 BPM, 3:23 of playing, on crash, ride, hi-hat, snare, mid tom and kick.

36 out of 100 -- a fair first song -- with the independence between the hands and the feet the part that decides it.

TEMPO
85 BPM
TIME
4/4
BARS
72
LENGTH
3:23
DIFFICULTY
36/100

silence through bars 1-3, snare through bars 4-7, hi-hat through bars 8-9, silence through bars 10-12, ride through bars 13-15 and hi-hat through bars 16-28, and 12 more changes after that.

The beat

The beat the song is built on is one bar, played through bars 22-27 and 34 -- 10.6% of every bar the kit plays. This one moves around more than most: the beat is where to start, not the whole job.

    22
    1e+a2e+a3e+a4e+a
HH |x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-|
SD |----x-------x---|
BD |x-----x---x-----|
Today -- the groove · x hit · o open hi-hat · g ghost note · r cross-stick · X accent

The fills

6 fills to learn, played 11 times: bars 8, 28, 31, 32, 38, 39 and 5 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 -- G, F -- 2 exercises, about 23 minutes.
  2. The grooves the song is built on -- N -- 5 exercises, about 23 minutes.
  3. Through Part F and Part G -- 5 exercises, about 29 minutes.
  4. Through Part G and the Outro -- 6 exercises, about 27 minutes.
  5. Through Part G and the Outro -- 7 exercises, about 30 minutes.
  6. Through the Outro -- 3 exercises, about 24 minutes.
  7. Through the Outro and the Outro 2 -- 4 exercises, about 30 minutes. Open above.
  8. The whole song -- 4 exercises, about 21 minutes.
START THE COURSE ↑

Questions

What BPM is Today?

85 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 Today hard to play on drums?

36 out of 100 -- a fair first song -- with the independence between the hands and the feet the part that decides it. The beat itself is 35 out of 100; the rest of the number is everything around it.

How long is the drum part?

72 bars, about 3:23 at the written tempo. The course breaks it into 29 exercises over 8 sittings, about 26 minutes each.

What do I need on the kit?

crash, ride, hi-hat, snare, mid 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 Today?

6 fills to learn, played 11 times: bars 8, 28, 31, 32, 38, 39 and 5 more.

READ OFF THE SCORE ITSELF · 72 BARS ANALYSED