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Better Man · Pearl Jam

EXERCISE 5 OF 32
Groove D
53 / 129 BARS COVERED
0 / 32 PASSED · 2 BARS LIT · IN THE PART B
PART B
BREAK
PART K
CHORUS
OUTRO
OUTRO 2
5 groovesGS2KHBFill into the next barFill that ends a sectionInto the next partStop / hitRest
GROOVE · 7
FILL · 6
LAND · 6
RUN · 1
JOIN · 4
LINK · 3
SECTION · 4
WHOLE SONG · 1
ABOUT THIS DRUM PART

How to play Better Man on drums

129 bars of 4/4 at a walking 94 BPM, 5:29 of playing, on crash, ride, hi-hat, snare, high tom, mid tom, floor tom, kick and hi-hat foot.

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

TEMPO
94 BPM
TIME
4/4
BARS
129
LENGTH
5:29
DIFFICULTY
52/100

hi-hat through bars 1-7, silence through bars 8-56 and ride through bars 57-129.

The beat

The beat the song is built on is one bar, played through bars 57, 59 and 66-68, and 19 more places -- 39.5% of every bar the kit plays. Learn that one and most of the song is already under your hands.

    59
    1e+a2e+a3e+a4e+a
CC |x---------------|
RD |--x-x-x-x-x-x-x-|
SD |----x-------x---|
BD |x-----x---x-----|
Better Man -- the groove · x hit · o open hi-hat · g ghost note · r cross-stick · X accent

The fills

6 fills to learn, played 14 times: bars 56, 61, 62, 64, 65, 81 and 8 more.

What the course does

It cuts the song into 25 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 -- G, N -- 2 exercises, about 25 minutes.
  2. The grooves the song is built on -- H -- 2 exercises, about 23 minutes.
  3. Through Part B and the Break -- 3 exercises, about 18 minutes. Open above.
  4. Through Part K -- 6 exercises, about 32 minutes.
  5. Through Part K and the Chorus -- 6 exercises, about 26 minutes.
  6. Through the Chorus and the Outro -- 5 exercises, about 28 minutes.
  7. The whole song -- 6 exercises, about 30 minutes.
  8. Through the Outro 2 -- 2 exercises, about 6 minutes.
START THE COURSE ↑

Questions

What BPM is Better Man?

94 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 Better Man hard to play on drums?

52 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 39 out of 100; the rest of the number is everything around it.

How long is the drum part?

129 bars, about 5:29 at the written tempo. The course breaks it into 25 exercises over 8 sittings, about 24 minutes each.

What do I need on the kit?

crash, ride, hi-hat, snare, high tom, mid tom, floor tom, kick and hi-hat foot. That is most of a full kit; the part moves around it rather than sitting in one place.

How many fills are in Better Man?

6 fills to learn, played 14 times: bars 56, 61, 62, 64, 65, 81 and 8 more.

READ OFF THE SCORE ITSELF · 129 BARS ANALYSED