Black Betty · Ram Jam

140 bars of 4/4 at 114 BPM, about 4:54 of playing, on crash, ride, hi-hat, snare, high tom, mid tom, floor tom, kick and hi-hat foot.

RockJazz / Blues90 to 119 BPMAdvanced
TEMPO
114 BPM
TIME
4/4
BARS
140
LENGTH
4:54
DIFFICULTY
59/100
THE BEAT

One bar, and 25% of the song

The beat the song is built on is one bar, played through bars 62-63, 66 and 70-80, and 2 more places -- 25% of every bar the kit plays. That is the spine of it; everything else is what happens around it.

LOOP · 114 BPM
BLACK BETTY · BAR 70
THE BEAT, WRITTEN OUT →
THE FILLS

Where it comes off the beat

6 fills to learn, played 36 times: bars 45, 46, 47, 48, 49, 50 and 30 more.

LOOP · 114 BPM
BAR 64 · LANDS ON BAR 65
LOOP · 114 BPM
BARS 67-68 · LANDS ON BAR 69 · PLAYED 2 TIMES
LOOP · 114 BPM
BARS 101-104 · LANDS ON BAR 105 · PLAYED 4 TIMES

3 more fills are written out on the fills page.

EVERY FILL, WRITTEN OUT →
THE SHAPE

How the song is built

140 bars across 7 sections: 73 keep time, 36 are fills and 23 are stops. The longest unbroken stretch of time is bars 70-100.

PART A
PART B
PART A
PART B
PART M
OUTRO
OUTRO 2
4 groovesPBAMFill into the next barFill that ends a sectionInto the next partStop / hitRest

Questions

What BPM is Black Betty?

114 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 Black Betty hard to play on drums?

59 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 37 out of 100; the rest of the number is everything around it.

How long is the drum part?

140 bars, about 4:54 at the written tempo. The course breaks it into 28 exercises over 10 sittings, about 23 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 Black Betty?

6 fills to learn, played 36 times: bars 45, 46, 47, 48, 49, 50 and 30 more.

READ OFF THE SCORE ITSELF · 140 BARS ANALYSED
AT THIS LEVEL

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