Always · Daniel Caesar

50 bars, 2:56, at 68 BPM: slow enough that every note is exposed. Crash, ride, hi-hat, snare, high tom, mid tom, floor tom and kick and nothing else.

Under 90 BPM
TEMPO
68 BPM
TIME
4/4
BARS
50
LENGTH
2:56
DIFFICULTY
45/100
THE BEAT

One bar, and 26% of the song

The beat the song is built on is one bar, played through bars 7, 11 and 13-15, and 4 more places -- 26.1% of every bar the kit plays. That is the spine of it; everything else is what happens around it.

LOOP · 68 BPM
ALWAYS · BAR 7
THE FILLS

Where it comes off the beat

7 fills to learn, played 18 times: bars 8, 12, 16, 17, 18, 27 and 12 more.

LOOP · 68 BPM
BAR 8 · LANDS ON BAR 9
LOOP · 68 BPM
BAR 12 · LANDS ON BAR 13 · PLAYED 2 TIMES
LOOP · 68 BPM
BARS 16-18 · LANDS ON BAR 19 · PLAYED 3 TIMES
LOOP · 68 BPM
BARS 27-31 · LANDS ON BAR 32 · PLAYED 5 TIMES

3 more fills are written out on the fills page.

THE SHAPE

How the song is built

50 bars across 5 sections: 22 keep time, 18 are fills, 2 are stops and 4 are silent. The longest unbroken stretch of time is bars 21-24.

COUNT-IN
CHORUS
PART J
OUTRO
OUTRO 2
4 groovesCJUS1Fill into the next barFill that ends a sectionInto the next partStop / hitRest

Questions

What BPM is Always?

68 BPM, in 4/4, with the time kept in sixteenth notes. Slow enough to hear every mistake, which is why the room lets you sit at the written tempo rather than under it.

Is Always hard to play on drums?

45 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 27 out of 100; the rest of the number is everything around it.

How long is the drum part?

50 bars, about 2:56 at the written tempo. The course breaks it into 22 exercises over 7 sittings, about 25 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 Always?

7 fills to learn, played 18 times: bars 8, 12, 16, 17, 18, 27 and 12 more.

READ OFF THE SCORE ITSELF · 50 BARS ANALYSED
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