Chords for How To Play Grapevine Fires on Drums - Lesson (Death Cab For Cutie)

_ Hi.
_ Today I'm going to show you how to play the drum groove from Grapevine Fires by Death Cab for Cutie.
It's based on a standard halftime shuffle and a lot of the magazines that have transcribed it tend to transcribe it as if it were a
standard halftime shuffle, and it's [B] not.
He made some changes to it.
So to try and clear that up,
I'm going to break it down for you and show you how the drum part is actually played.
You can see this [Abm] if you go online.
There's a great video of them playing this in a studio, and the cameras get focused in on Jason McGurr when he's playing it
at the very beginning of the song.
You can [G] see clearly what he's doing. _ _
_ First off, if you don't know how to play a standard halftime shuffle,
you're probably going to want to [Eb] go and figure that out first because it's going to make this whole thing a lot easier.
But just as a refresher, a halftime shuffle is based on a triplet pattern
broken up between [N] the hi-hat and the snare drum like this. _ _ _ _ _ _
_ [C] _ _ _ _ _ [N] _
That's a normal halftime shuffle.
So played full-on, sounds like this. _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
[B] _ _ _ And the changes that he made [B] to make the groove for Great Bad [Cm] Fires is
he doesn't play [C] every single note of the bar the way a standard halftime shuffle is played.
What he's [Eb] normally playing with his right hand is just straight eighth notes,
and the shuffle feel is coming from a few different things.
The shuffle feel is coming from
where he places his ghost notes,
it's coming from a hi-hat step that he plays with his left foot, and
it's coming from a rest that he puts right after the backbeat.
So very slowly,
[B] here is the groove from the song. _ _ _ _
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_ [Gb] _ _ So some things to look for in playing this groove correctly.
_ [C] First is that hi-hat step.
So the groove starts like this. _ _ _ _ _
_ _ Then the next thing to look for is that rest right after the backbeat, so he's not filling up every single note. _ _ _
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_ _ _ _ And finally, [G] at the very end of the bar,
coming out of the end back into the one, he does a double on the bass drum.
So if you're counting it as one ta ta two ta ta three ta ta four ta ta one, that bass drum does have a
double on the hi-hat matched up with it.
So [Abm] watch for those things. _ _ _ _ _
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_ _ So a little bit faster, sounds like this. _ _ _ _ _ _ _
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_ _ _ [A] _ _ So a couple fills or changes of the groove that he makes [B] is every once in a while
he will [N] add a bass drum note matching up with the hi-hat step.
So when that happens, both of your feet are playing at the same time.
_ I'm gonna go back and forth between the standard groove and the one that has the extra bass drum in it,
so you'll see what I'm talking about. _
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_ _ _ _ _ Another change that he makes sometimes when he adds that bass drum note, _
the ghost note leading into it, he makes a diddle.
So as opposed to playing single, he'll play it as_
_ So what that sounds like is this. _ _ _ _ _
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_ _ That's pretty much it.
I have the song transcribed out, well, I have the groove, a couple bars of it,
transcribed out in musical notation, and I'm gonna play it again.
And I can email that if someone wants to email me at my website and see what it looks like written out.
So now I'm just gonna play the groove for a little while.
If you want to put it on headphones and try and play along, you'll see how this thing works. _ _
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_ _ _ _ [D] _ _ _ _
_ _ [Am] _ _ It's a great groove.