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Uptown Funk · Mark Ronson

EXERCISE 8 OF 37
Groove E -- Part E
91 / 128 BARS COVERED
0 / 37 PASSED · 6 BARS LIT · IN THE PART E
PART A
PART E
CHORUS
PART E
PART I
PART B
OUTRO 2
7 groovesGAEIJ+2Fill into the next barFill that ends a sectionInto the next partStop / hitRest
GROOVE · 8
FILL · 3
LAND · 3
RUN · 2
JOIN · 8
LINK · 5
SECTION · 7
WHOLE SONG · 1
ABOUT THIS DRUM PART

How to play Uptown Funk on drums

128 bars of 4/4 at 115 BPM, about 4:27 of playing, on crash, ride, hi-hat, snare, kick and hi-hat foot.

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

TEMPO
115 BPM
TIME
4/4
BARS
128
LENGTH
4:27
DIFFICULTY
52/100

snare through bars 1-8, hi-hat through bars 9-25, kick and crashes through bars 26-28, snare through bars 29-31, hi-hat through bars 32-60 and kick and crashes through bars 61-64, and 5 more changes after that.

The beat

The beat the song is built on is one bar, played through bars 9, 11 and 13, and 32 more places -- 27.3% of every bar the kit plays. That is the spine of it; everything else is what happens around it.

    11
    1e+a2e+a3e+a4e+a
HH |x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-|
SD |----x-------x---|
BD |x---x---x---x---|
Uptown Funk -- the groove · x hit · o open hi-hat · g ghost note · r cross-stick · X accent

The fills

3 fills to learn, played 6 times: bars 32, 68, 100, 112, 120 and 128.

What the course does

It cuts the song into 33 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 -- B, C -- 2 exercises, about 27 minutes.
  2. The grooves the song is built on -- G -- 5 exercises, about 30 minutes.
  3. Through Part D and Part E -- 3 exercises, about 28 minutes. Open above.
  4. Through Part E and the Chorus -- 5 exercises, about 20 minutes.
  5. Bars 39-74 -- 4 exercises, about 24 minutes.
  6. Bars 77-98 -- 5 exercises, about 29 minutes.
  7. Bars 94-110 -- 6 exercises, about 24 minutes.
  8. Through the Outro and the Outro 2 -- 5 exercises, about 29 minutes.
  9. and 1 more sittings after that.
START THE COURSE ↑

Questions

What BPM is Uptown Funk?

115 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 Uptown Funk hard to play on drums?

52 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 44 out of 100; the rest of the number is everything around it.

How long is the drum part?

128 bars, about 4:27 at the written tempo. The course breaks it into 33 exercises over 9 sittings, about 25 minutes each.

What do I need on the kit?

crash, ride, hi-hat, snare, 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 Uptown Funk?

3 fills to learn, played 6 times: bars 32, 68, 100, 112, 120 and 128.

READ OFF THE SCORE ITSELF · 128 BARS ANALYSED