Funky Drummer · James Brown

227 bars of 4/4 at a walking 96 BPM, 9:24 of playing, on ride, hi-hat, snare, mid tom, kick and hi-hat foot.

90 to 119 BPMIntermediate
TEMPO
96 BPM
TIME
4/4
BARS
227
LENGTH
9:24
DIFFICULTY
62/100
THE BEAT

One bar, and 35% of the song

The beat the song is built on is one bar, played through bars 101-160, 165-172 and 185-186, and 3 more places -- 34.8% of every bar the kit plays. That is the spine of it; everything else is what happens around it.

LOOP · 96 BPM
FUNKY DRUMMER · BAR 101
THE BEAT, WRITTEN OUT →
THE FILLS

Where it comes off the beat

1 fill to learn, played 7 times: bars 221, 222, 223, 224, 225, 226 and 1 more.

LOOP · 96 BPM
BARS 221-227 · PLAYED 7 TIMES
EVERY FILL, WRITTEN OUT →
THE SHAPE

How the song is built

227 bars across 27 sections: 190 keep time and 7 are fills. The longest unbroken stretch of time is bars 102-160.

PART E
PART P
CHORUS
PART AB
OUTRO 2
15 groovesAAABEPJ+10Fill into the next barFill that ends a sectionInto the next partStop / hitRest

Questions

What BPM is Funky Drummer?

96 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 Funky Drummer hard to play on drums?

62 out of 100, a step up from a first song, and the work is in how much of it falls off the beat. The beat itself is 47 out of 100; the rest of the number is everything around it.

How long is the drum part?

227 bars, about 9:24 at the written tempo. The course breaks it into 57 exercises over 18 sittings, about 26 minutes each.

What do I need on the kit?

ride, hi-hat, snare, mid 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 Funky Drummer?

1 fill to learn, played 7 times: bars 221, 222, 223, 224, 225, 226 and 1 more.

READ OFF THE SCORE ITSELF · 227 BARS ANALYSED
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