Better Man · Taylor Swift

68 bars, 3:41, at 74 BPM: slow enough that every note is exposed. Crash, ride, hi-hat, snare, mid tom, floor tom and kick and nothing else.

Under 90 BPM
TEMPO
74 BPM
TIME
4/4
BARS
68
LENGTH
3:41
DIFFICULTY
52/100
THE BEAT

One bar, and 32% of the song

The beat the song is built on is one bar, played through bars 5, 13 and 15, and 8 more places -- 31.6% of every bar the kit plays. That is the spine of it; everything else is what happens around it.

LOOP · 74 BPM
BETTER MAN · BAR 24
THE BEAT, WRITTEN OUT →
THE FILLS

Where it comes off the beat

4 fills to learn, played 9 times: bars 16, 21, 29, 46, 47, 49 and 3 more.

LOOP · 74 BPM
BAR 16 · LANDS ON BAR 17 · PLAYED 3 TIMES
LOOP · 74 BPM
BAR 21 · LANDS ON BAR 22
LOOP · 74 BPM
BARS 46-47 · LANDS ON BAR 48 · PLAYED 2 TIMES
LOOP · 74 BPM
BARS 49-51 · LANDS ON BAR 52 · PLAYED 3 TIMES
EVERY FILL, WRITTEN OUT →
THE SHAPE

How the song is built

68 bars across 7 sections: 39 keep time, 9 are fills, 2 are stops and 11 are silent. The longest unbroken stretch of time is bars 52-62.

COUNT-IN
PART C
PART D
CHORUS
PART C
OUTRO
OUTRO 2
5 groovesBDCS6S1Fill into the next barFill that ends a sectionInto the next partStop / hitRest

Questions

What BPM is Better Man?

74 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 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 20 out of 100; the rest of the number is everything around it.

How long is the drum part?

68 bars, about 3:41 at the written tempo. The course breaks it into 22 exercises over 8 sittings, about 22 minutes each.

What do I need on the kit?

crash, ride, hi-hat, snare, 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 Better Man?

4 fills to learn, played 9 times: bars 16, 21, 29, 46, 47, 49 and 3 more.

READ OFF THE SCORE ITSELF · 68 BARS ANALYSED
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