Beat It · Michael Jackson

148 bars of 4/4 at 139 BPM, about 4:16 of playing, on crash, hi-hat, snare, kick and hi-hat foot.

ElectronicPop120 to 149 BPM
TEMPO
139 BPM
TIME
4/4
BARS
148
LENGTH
4:16
DIFFICULTY
61/100
THE BEAT

One bar, and 49% of the song

The beat the song is built on is one bar, played through bars 15, 17 and 19, and 63 more places -- 48.9% of every bar the kit plays. Learn that one and most of the song is already under your hands.

LOOP · 139 BPM
BEAT IT · BAR 15
THE BEAT, WRITTEN OUT →
THE SHAPE

How the song is built

148 bars across 5 sections: 131 keep time, 1 is a fill and 13 are silent. The longest unbroken stretch of time is bars 69-147.

COUNT-IN
PART D
CHORUS
OUTRO 2
3 groovesCDS1Fill into the next barFill that ends a sectionInto the next partStop / hitRest

Questions

What BPM is Beat It?

139 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 Beat It hard to play on drums?

61 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 32 out of 100; the rest of the number is everything around it.

How long is the drum part?

148 bars, about 4:16 at the written tempo. The course breaks it into 12 exercises over 4 sittings, about 26 minutes each.

What do I need on the kit?

crash, hi-hat, snare, kick and hi-hat foot. Nothing in the part asks for anything else.

READ OFF THE SCORE ITSELF · 148 BARS ANALYSED
MORE BY THIS BAND

Other Michael Jackson drum parts

EVERY MICHAEL JACKSON CHART →
AT THIS LEVEL

Play something else today

EVERY SONG A-Z →