← SONGS

What Is Life · George Harrison

EXERCISE 1 OF 34
Groove C -- Chorus
0 / 146 BARS COVERED
0 / 34 PASSED · 59 BARS LIT
CHORUS
PART F
CHORUS 2
PART F
CHORUS 3
CHORUS 4
PART F
CHORUS 5
OUTRO 2
5 groovesCFUS1S7Fill into the next barFill that ends a sectionInto the next partStop / hitRest
GROOVE · 6
FILL · 8
LAND · 8
RUN · 1
JOIN · 5
LINK · 2
SECTION · 3
WHOLE SONG · 1
ABOUT THIS DRUM PART

How to play What Is Life on drums

146 bars of 4/4 at 132 BPM, about 4:25 of playing, on crash, ride, hi-hat, snare, high tom, mid tom, floor tom, kick and hi-hat foot.

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

TEMPO
132 BPM
TIME
4/4
BARS
146
LENGTH
4:25
DIFFICULTY
57/100

silence through bars 1-6, ride through bars 7-14, hi-hat through bars 15-30, ride through bars 31-38, toms through bars 39-40 and hi-hat through bars 41-56, and 9 more changes after that.

The beat

The beat the song is built on is one bar, played through bars 7-12, 31-38 and 57-64, and 6 more places -- 43.4% of every bar the kit plays. Learn that one and most of the song is already under your hands.

    7
    1e+a2e+a3e+a4e+a
RD |x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-|
SD |----x-------x---|
BD |x------xx-x-----|
What Is Life -- the groove · x hit · o open hi-hat · g ghost note · r cross-stick · X accent

The fills

8 fills to learn, played 13 times: bars 13, 39, 65, 66, 74, 75 and 7 more.

What the course does

It cuts the song into 25 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 -- C, F -- 2 exercises, about 27 minutes.
  2. Through the Chorus and Part F -- 5 exercises, about 29 minutes.
  3. Through Part F and the Chorus 2 -- 5 exercises, about 30 minutes.
  4. Through Part F and the Chorus 3 -- 3 exercises, about 30 minutes.
  5. Bars 57-90 -- 8 exercises, about 32 minutes.
  6. Bars 88-141 -- 7 exercises, about 27 minutes.
  7. The whole song -- 4 exercises, about 23 minutes.
START THE COURSE ↑

Questions

What BPM is What Is Life?

132 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 What Is Life hard to play on drums?

57 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 40 out of 100; the rest of the number is everything around it.

How long is the drum part?

146 bars, about 4:25 at the written tempo. The course breaks it into 25 exercises over 7 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 What Is Life?

8 fills to learn, played 13 times: bars 13, 39, 65, 66, 74, 75 and 7 more.

READ OFF THE SCORE ITSELF · 146 BARS ANALYSED