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Uphill Battle · Ambitions

Uphill Battle · Ambitions
EXERCISE 20 OF 41
Run D1 · Chorus (bars 1-28)
47 / 69 BARS COVERED
0 / 41 PASSED · 28 BARS LIT · IN THE CHORUS
CHORUS
PART K
PART N
OUTRO
OUTRO 2
5 groovesDTKNQFill into the next barFill that ends a sectionInto the next partStop / hitRest
GROOVE · 7
FILL · 11
LAND · 11
RUN · 2
JOIN · 4
LINK · 2
SECTION · 3
WHOLE SONG · 1
ABOUT THIS DRUM PART

How to play Uphill Battle on drums

69 bars at 210 BPM -- fast, and 1:19 of it without a break -- on crash, ride, hi-hat, snare, mid tom, floor tom, kick and hi-hat foot.

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

TEMPO
210 BPM
TIME
4/4
BARS
69
LENGTH
1:19
DIFFICULTY
66/100

toms through bars 1-4, hi-hat through bars 5-24, ride through bars 25-28, toms through bars 29-44, ride through bars 45-48 and hi-hat through bars 49-58, and 1 more change after that.

The beat

The beat the song is built on is one bar, played through bars 5-11, 13-15 and 17-23 -- 24.6% of every bar the kit plays. This one moves around more than most: the beat is where to start, not the whole job.

    5
    1e+a2e+a3e+a4e+a
CC |x---------------|
HH |--o-o-o-o-o-o-o-|
SD |--x---x---x---x-|
BD |x----x--x----x--|
Uphill Battle -- the groove · x hit · o open hi-hat · g ghost note · r cross-stick · X accent

The fills

11 fills to learn, played 21 times: bars 1, 2, 4, 12, 16, 24 and 15 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 -- D -- 6 exercises, about 37 minutes.
  2. The grooves the song is built on -- T -- 5 exercises, about 25 minutes.
  3. The grooves the song is built on -- K -- 5 exercises, about 26 minutes.
  4. Through the Chorus -- 3 exercises, about 29 minutes.
  5. Bars 1-38 -- 6 exercises, about 30 minutes. Open above.
  6. Bars 33-45 -- 3 exercises, about 26 minutes.
  7. Bars 43-49 -- 7 exercises, about 28 minutes.
  8. Through the Outro 2 -- 4 exercises, about 29 minutes.
  9. and 1 more sittings after that.
START THE COURSE ↑

Questions

What BPM is Uphill Battle?

210 BPM, in 4/4, with the time kept in sixteenth notes. At that speed the sixteenth notes are the whole difficulty, so the room will take it down to a quarter of it and climb back.

Is Uphill Battle hard to play on drums?

66 out of 100: demanding, mostly on the independence between the hands and the feet. The beat itself is 73 out of 100; the rest of the number is everything around it.

How long is the drum part?

69 bars, about 1:19 at the written tempo. The course breaks it into 29 exercises over 9 sittings, about 27 minutes each.

What do I need on the kit?

crash, ride, hi-hat, snare, 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 Uphill Battle?

11 fills to learn, played 21 times: bars 1, 2, 4, 12, 16, 24 and 15 more.

READ OFF THE SCORE ITSELF · 69 BARS ANALYSED