【Jess Lee 李佳薇】甲乙丙丁-你我怎麼兩清 Practice Log

Today’s share is 【Jess Lee 李佳薇】〈甲乙丙丁－你我怎麼兩清〉.

The song is only BPM 65, and I thought a slow tempo would be easier,
but practicing it proved… not simple at all! (sweat)
It hides lots of ghost notes, syncopations, drum rolls, embellishments, and even 32nd-note kick doubles,
and the more I practiced the more I kept finding new details. XD

Before jumping in, I warmed up my hands to loosen them up, then started tackling 〈甲乙丙丁〉.

For the opening A section I first isolated the kick placements to practice.
Some spots don’t have the right hand on Hi-Hat, leaving the foot to keep time.
Without the right hand carrying the pulse, it’s easier to tell whether your foot is steady.

Before the bridge there’s a 32nd-note kick double. I use a “press back then forward” motion,
using a slide-push to get the two quick hits. Early on my foot often produced only one hit,
or the two would stick together. (sweat) So I broke that double out and practiced it separately until I found a smoother technique.

If that feels awkward, try practicing the short phrase below — it helps a lot with foot doubles.

Entering the four-bar bridge, I got stuck longest on bars 2’s beats 3–4.
The sticking there easily becomes tangled, so I slowed it way down and repeated it until the hands learned the movement order.
Only then did it connect more smoothly.

Back to the verse, the earlier grooves are more forgiving, so I could finally catch my breath. XD
I like the feel after adding ghost notes here — they’re quiet but add a lot of rhythmic detail.

But the easy part didn’t last long… it quickly gets harder.
Notes pile up with recurring syncopations and 32nd notes; just reading every placement becomes dizzying. (sweat)

Bars 35–36 especially made me woozy. In two short bars
they cram ghost notes, drum rolls, 32nd-note kick doubles and embellishments,
almost every tricky technique in one spot.
When I put the tempo back up everything would fall apart, so I rebuilt it slowly from a low speed, connecting each movement bit by bit.
If you’re seeing these techniques for the first time, attempting the original version right away can easily make you GG,
so I also made a simplified version to get the section flowing before restoring the full part. That way you won’t always stop dead at the same spot. XD

After grinding through the verse, I finally hit the chorus! (cheer)

Although the chorus patterns look complex, having already faced the hard parts makes this section easier to handle.
There’s a feeling of “I survived the earlier stuff, this should be okay!” XD

The frequent hang-up in the chorus is bar 42, especially the quiet hit on beat 3,
which must immediately connect to a cymbal + snare on beat 4 — the hands often freeze.
I dropped the BPM to 50–60 to verify each placement and, once the sticking was secure, bumped the speed back up.

After a short rest you hit a hand-foot contrapuntal passage.
I really love this part — when it locks in it sounds great.
Getting through it clean always feels very satisfying.

At the final ending there’s another tricky passage. But having been worn down by many rhythmic challenges earlier,
my hands were more accustomed by then, so the last hurdle wasn’t as bad as I expected. Ha~

Also, I’m gradually adding SP sound effects. While organizing this song I realized
some sounds weren’t handled well yet. (sweat) No worries — I’ll add them back bit by bit.

Overall, 〈甲乙丙丁－你我怎麼兩清〉 may be slow, but it’s packed with detail.
Ghost notes, syncopations, rolls, embellishments and kick doubles test hand-foot coordination throughout.

Because it’s only BPM 65, I deliberately made bigger motions during practice so each stroke and shift was clearer.
After practicing I felt my hands more willing to lift naturally instead of staying close to the drums.
A slow song full of details plays very differently than expected.

I thought it would be an easy slow groove, but it wasn’t XD.
Still, when those previously troublesome ghost notes, doubles and transitions finally connect smoothly, it’s very rewarding!

If you like this tune, come feel this “sounds slow but plays busy” 〈甲乙丙丁〉 with me! 🥁