JACK JOHNSON · DRUM BEAT

The drum beat in Better Together

The beat the song is built on is one bar, played through bars 30-52, 62-68 and 85-92 -- 42.7% of every bar the kit plays. Learn that one and most of the song is already under your hands.

TEMPO
112 BPM
TIME
4/4
BARS
93
LENGTH
3:19
DIFFICULTY
12/100

The beat, written out

LOOP · 112 BPM
BETTER TOGETHER · BAR 30

It is played on hi-hat and snare, counted in sixteenth notes. On its own it scores 9 out of 100 -- straightforward -- and the thing that decides that is the speed of the hand keeping time.

The whole song is 12 out of 100, so the beat is most of what the song asks for. Get it clean and the rest follows.

How to get it under your hands

The room opens this beat on its simplest reduction, at 84 BPM, and adds the notes back a rung at a time -- 3 of them. Nothing is a matter of opinion: each rung has a tempo to reach and a gate to pass before the next one.

  1. Kick and snare, whole. The feet and the snare exactly as written, hi-hat pulled back to quarter notes. This is the part to know by heart.
  2. As written. Open hi-hat, ghost notes, accents and the crash where they belong.

Tempo goes 84, 98 and 112 BPM, and the gate at each one is 8 loops in a row with no wrong note and no wobble in the time.

PRACTISE THIS BEAT →

Questions

What drum beat does Better Together use?

A one-bar groove on hi-hat and snare, in 4/4 at 112 BPM, counted in sixteenth notes. It is written out above, and it covers 42.7% of the bars the kit plays.

Where does the beat come in?

Bars 30-52, 62-68 and 85-92. The time is kept on the silence to start with, and it changes 7 times over the song.

Is the beat in Better Together hard?

9 out of 100 on its own -- straightforward. The song as a whole is 12 out of 100: straightforward, and the one thing to watch is how often it moves around the kit.

READ OFF THE SCORE ITSELF · 93 BARS ANALYSED