← SONGS

Word Up · Gun

Word Up · Gun
EXERCISE 1 OF 29
Groove B -- Chorus
0 / 123 BARS COVERED
0 / 29 PASSED · 81 BARS LIT · IN THE CHORUS, OUTRO 2
CHORUS
OUTRO
OUTRO 2
3 groovesBGS1Fill into the next barFill that ends a sectionInto the next partStop / hitRest
GROOVE · 5
FILL · 8
LAND · 8
RUN · 1
JOIN · 2
LINK · 2
SECTION · 2
WHOLE SONG · 1
ABOUT THIS DRUM PART

How to play Word Up on drums

123 bars of 4/4 at 118 BPM, about 4:10 of playing, on crash, ride, hi-hat, snare, high tom, mid tom, floor tom and kick.

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

TEMPO
118 BPM
TIME
4/4
BARS
123
LENGTH
4:10
DIFFICULTY
54/100

silence through bars 1-7, hi-hat through bars 8-67, ride through bars 68-83 and hi-hat through bars 84-123.

The beat

The beat the song is built on is one bar, played through bars 8-10, 12-14 and 16-22, and 16 more places -- 69.2% of every bar the kit plays. Learn that one and the song is very nearly finished.

    9
    1e+a2e+a3e+a4e+a
HH |o---o---o---o---|
SD |----x-------x---|
BD |x-x---x---------|
Word Up -- 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 15, 31, 39, 55, 67, 75 and 7 more.

What the course does

It cuts the song into 20 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 -- 3 exercises, about 28 minutes.
  2. Through the Chorus -- 5 exercises, about 26 minutes.
  3. Through the Chorus and the Outro -- 4 exercises, about 23 minutes.
  4. Through the Chorus and the Outro -- 5 exercises, about 28 minutes.
  5. Through the Outro and the Outro 2 -- 8 exercises, about 29 minutes.
  6. The whole song -- 4 exercises, about 20 minutes.
START THE COURSE ↑

Questions

What BPM is Word Up?

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 Word Up hard to play on drums?

54 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 31 out of 100; the rest of the number is everything around it.

How long is the drum part?

123 bars, about 4:10 at the written tempo. The course breaks it into 20 exercises over 6 sittings, about 26 minutes each.

What do I need on the kit?

crash, ride, 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 Word Up?

8 fills to learn, played 13 times: bars 15, 31, 39, 55, 67, 75 and 7 more.

READ OFF THE SCORE ITSELF · 123 BARS ANALYSED