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Breakdown · Tom Petty

EXERCISE 15 OF 25
2-bar fill at bar 38
70 / 77 BARS COVERED
0 / 25 PASSED · 2 BARS LIT · IN THE OUTRO
CHORUS
OUTRO
OUTRO 2
3 groovesAKGFill into the next barFill that ends a sectionInto the next partStop / hitRest
GROOVE · 8
FILL · 4
LAND · 4
RUN · 1
JOIN · 2
LINK · 2
SECTION · 3
WHOLE SONG · 1
ABOUT THIS DRUM PART

How to play Breakdown on drums

77 bars of 4/4 at a walking 108 BPM, 2:51 of playing, on crash, hi-hat, snare, mid tom, floor tom and kick.

65 out of 100: demanding, mostly on the independence between the hands and the feet.

TEMPO
108 BPM
TIME
4/4
BARS
77
LENGTH
2:51
DIFFICULTY
65/100

The time is kept on the hi-hat the whole way through.

The beat

The beat the song is built on is one bar, played through bars 1-21, 25-29 and 34 -- 35.5% of every bar the kit plays. Learn that one and most of the song is already under your hands.

    1
    1.......2.......3.......4.......
HH |-----x---------------x----------|
SD |--------x---------------x----x--|
BD |x------------x------------------|
Breakdown -- the groove · x hit · o open hi-hat · g ghost note · r cross-stick · X accent

The fills

4 fills to learn, played 9 times: bars 32, 36, 38, 39, 41, 43 and 3 more.

What the course does

It cuts the song into 20 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 -- A -- 2 exercises, about 18 minutes.
  2. The grooves the song is built on -- K, B -- 2 exercises, about 27 minutes.
  3. Through the Chorus -- 1 exercise, about 16 minutes.
  4. Through the Outro 2 -- 1 exercise, about 16 minutes.
  5. Through the Chorus and the Outro -- 5 exercises, about 29 minutes.
  6. Through the Chorus and the Outro -- 3 exercises, about 25 minutes.
  7. Bars 31-54 -- 8 exercises, about 32 minutes. Open above.
  8. Through the Outro 2 -- 2 exercises, about 21 minutes.
  9. and 1 more sittings after that.
START THE COURSE ↑

Questions

What BPM is Breakdown?

108 BPM, in 4/4, with the time kept in thirty-second 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 Breakdown hard to play on drums?

65 out of 100: demanding, mostly on the independence between the hands and the feet. The beat itself is 44 out of 100; the rest of the number is everything around it.

How long is the drum part?

77 bars, about 2:51 at the written tempo. The course breaks it into 20 exercises over 9 sittings, about 22 minutes each.

What do I need on the kit?

crash, 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 Breakdown?

4 fills to learn, played 9 times: bars 32, 36, 38, 39, 41, 43 and 3 more.

READ OFF THE SCORE ITSELF · 77 BARS ANALYSED