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We Might as Well Be Strangers · Weezer

EXERCISE 1 OF 36
Groove G -- Chorus (a two-bar phrase)
0 / 97 BARS COVERED
0 / 36 PASSED · 28 BARS LIT · IN THE CHORUS, CHORUS 2, CHORUS 3
COUNT-IN
PART D
CHORUS
PART D
CHORUS 2
CHORUS 3
10 groovesGDS1BT+5Fill into the next barFill that ends a sectionInto the next partStop / hitRest
GROOVE · 9
FILL · 5
LAND · 5
RUN · 2
JOIN · 8
LINK · 2
SECTION · 4
WHOLE SONG · 1
ABOUT THIS DRUM PART

How to play We Might as Well Be Strangers on drums

97 bars of 4/4 at 111 BPM, about 3:30 of playing, on crash, ride, hi-hat, snare, high tom, mid tom, floor tom, kick and hi-hat foot.

52 out of 100, a step up from a first song, and the work is in how often it moves around the kit.

TEMPO
111 BPM
TIME
4/4
BARS
97
LENGTH
3:30
DIFFICULTY
52/100

silence through bars 1-5, snare through bars 6-9, hi-hat through bars 10-21, ride through bars 22-35, toms through bars 36-37 and hi-hat through bars 38-49, and 3 more changes after that.

The beat

The beat the song is built on is a 2-bar phrase, played through bars 23, 25-31 and 33-35, and 7 more places -- 31.8% of every bar the kit plays. That is the spine of it; everything else is what happens around it.

    25               26
    1e+a2e+a3e+a4e+a 1e+a2e+a3e+a4e+a
CC |----------------|x-------------x-|
RD |x-g-x-g-x-g-x-g-|--g-x-g-x-g-x---|
SD |----x-------x--g|----x--g----x---|
BD |--x-----x-x-----|x-x-----x-x---x-|
HF |x---x---x---x---|x---x---x---x---|
We Might as Well Be Strangers -- the groove · x hit · o open hi-hat · g ghost note · r cross-stick · X accent

The fills

5 fills to learn, played 10 times: bars 48, 49, 64, 65, 76, 77 and 4 more.

What the course does

It cuts the song into 30 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, D -- 3 exercises, about 31 minutes.
  2. The grooves the song is built on -- H -- 2 exercises, about 27 minutes.
  3. Bars 6-21 -- 4 exercises, about 27 minutes.
  4. Through the Chorus and Part D -- 5 exercises, about 33 minutes.
  5. Through Part D and the Chorus 2 -- 5 exercises, about 20 minutes.
  6. Through the Chorus 2 -- 3 exercises, about 21 minutes.
  7. Through the Chorus 2 and the Break 2 -- 4 exercises, about 26 minutes.
  8. Bars 82-88 -- 5 exercises, about 27 minutes.
  9. and 1 more sittings after that.
START THE COURSE ↑

Questions

What BPM is We Might as Well Be Strangers?

111 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 We Might as Well Be Strangers hard to play on drums?

52 out of 100, a step up from a first song, and the work is in how often it moves around the kit. The beat itself is 48 out of 100; the rest of the number is everything around it.

How long is the drum part?

97 bars, about 3:30 at the written tempo. The course breaks it into 30 exercises over 9 sittings, about 26 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 We Might as Well Be Strangers?

5 fills to learn, played 10 times: bars 48, 49, 64, 65, 76, 77 and 4 more.

READ OFF THE SCORE ITSELF · 97 BARS ANALYSED