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Waitin' For The Bus · ZZ Top

EXERCISE 4 OF 22
Groove B -- Part B
48 / 73 BARS COVERED
0 / 22 PASSED · 7 BARS LIT · IN THE PART B, OUTRO
PART B
CHORUS
PART G
PART F
OUTRO
OUTRO 2
4 groovesDFGBFill into the next barFill that ends a sectionInto the next partStop / hitRest
GROOVE · 6
FILL · 2
LAND · 2
RUN · 1
JOIN · 4
LINK · 2
SECTION · 4
WHOLE SONG · 1
ABOUT THIS DRUM PART

How to play Waitin' For The Bus on drums

73 bars of 4/4 at a walking 100 BPM, 2:55 of playing, on crash, ride, hi-hat, snare, high tom, mid tom, floor tom, kick and hi-hat foot.

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

TEMPO
100 BPM
TIME
4/4
BARS
73
LENGTH
2:55
DIFFICULTY
50/100

snare through bars 1-5, hi-hat through bars 6-54, snare through bars 55-59 and hi-hat through bars 60-73.

The beat

The beat the song is built on is one bar, played through bars 6-16, 18 and 60-70, and 1 more place -- 32.9% of every bar the kit plays. That is the spine of it; everything else is what happens around it.

    6
    1e+a2e+a3e+a4e+a
HH |x---x---x-------|
SD |----x-------x---|
BD |x-------x----x--|
HF |--------------x-|
Waitin' For The Bus -- the groove · x hit · o open hi-hat · g ghost note · r cross-stick · X accent

The fills

2 fills to learn, played 3 times: bars 29, 30 and 73.

What the course does

It cuts the song into 19 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, F -- 3 exercises, about 29 minutes.
  2. Through Part B and the Chorus -- 4 exercises, about 28 minutes. Open above.
  3. Through the Chorus and Part G -- 4 exercises, about 32 minutes.
  4. Bars 19-55 -- 7 exercises, about 29 minutes.
  5. The whole song -- 4 exercises, about 20 minutes.
START THE COURSE ↑

Questions

What BPM is Waitin' For The Bus?

100 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 Waitin' For The Bus hard to play on drums?

50 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 35 out of 100; the rest of the number is everything around it.

How long is the drum part?

73 bars, about 2:55 at the written tempo. The course breaks it into 19 exercises over 5 sittings, about 28 minutes each.

What do I need on the kit?

crash, ride, hi-hat, snare, high tom, 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 Waitin' For The Bus?

2 fills to learn, played 3 times: bars 29, 30 and 73.

READ OFF THE SCORE ITSELF · 73 BARS ANALYSED