← SONGS

Wherever I May Roam · Metallica

EXERCISE 1 OF 71
Groove F -- Chorus
0 / 217 BARS COVERED
0 / 71 PASSED · 63 BARS LIT
COUNT-IN
CHORUS
PART I
CHORUS 2
PART I
CHORUS 3
PART I
CHORUS 4
OUTRO 2
5 groovesFICS1S2Fill into the next barFill that ends a sectionInto the next partStop / hitRest
GROOVE · 7
FILL · 24
LAND · 24
RUN · 2
JOIN · 5
LINK · 4
SECTION · 4
WHOLE SONG · 1
ABOUT THIS DRUM PART

How to play Wherever I May Roam on drums

217 bars of 4/4 at 118 BPM, about 7:17 of playing, on crash, hi-hat, snare, high tom, mid tom, floor tom and kick.

39 out of 100 -- a fair first song -- with the independence between the hands and the feet the part that decides it.

TEMPO
118 BPM
TIME
4/4
BARS
217
LENGTH
7:17
DIFFICULTY
39/100

silence through bars 1-12, hi-hat through bars 13-35, toms through bars 36-61, hi-hat through bars 62-83, toms through bars 84-105 and hi-hat through bars 106-145, and 8 more changes after that.

The beat

The beat the song is built on is one bar, played through bars 23-30, 32-34 and 62-63, and 23 more places -- 30.6% of every bar the kit plays. That is the spine of it; everything else is what happens around it.

    23
    1e+a2e+a3e+a4e+a
CC |x---------------|
HH |--o-o-o-o-o-o-o-|
SD |----x-------x---|
BD |x-------x-------|
Wherever I May Roam -- the groove · x hit · o open hi-hat · g ghost note · r cross-stick · X accent

The fills

24 fills to learn, played 49 times: bars 12, 21, 43, 58, 59, 60 and 43 more.

What the course does

It cuts the song into 46 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 -- F, I -- 3 exercises, about 24 minutes.
  2. The grooves the song is built on -- C -- 7 exercises, about 30 minutes.
  3. Bars 12-44 -- 5 exercises, about 28 minutes.
  4. Through Part I and the Chorus 2 -- 7 exercises, about 29 minutes.
  5. Bars 70-109 -- 7 exercises, about 22 minutes.
  6. Through the Chorus 3 -- 4 exercises, about 32 minutes.
  7. Through the Chorus 3 and Part I -- 10 exercises, about 28 minutes.
  8. Bars 145-167 -- 7 exercises, about 27 minutes.
  9. and 3 more sittings after that.
START THE COURSE ↑

Questions

What BPM is Wherever I May Roam?

118 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 Wherever I May Roam hard to play on drums?

39 out of 100 -- a fair first song -- with the independence between the hands and the feet the part that decides it. The beat itself is 29 out of 100; the rest of the number is everything around it.

How long is the drum part?

217 bars, about 7:17 at the written tempo. The course breaks it into 46 exercises over 11 sittings, about 27 minutes each.

What do I need on the kit?

crash, hi-hat, snare, high tom, mid tom, floor tom and kick. That is most of a full kit; the part moves around it rather than sitting in one place.

How many fills are in Wherever I May Roam?

24 fills to learn, played 49 times: bars 12, 21, 43, 58, 59, 60 and 43 more.

READ OFF THE SCORE ITSELF · 217 BARS ANALYSED