← SONGS

Girlfriend Is Better · Talking Heads

EXERCISE 3 OF 12
Groove B
144 / 170 BARS COVERED
0 / 12 PASSED · 12 BARS LIT · IN THE CHORUS, OUTRO
CHORUS
OUTRO
2 groovesAFFill into the next barFill that ends a sectionInto the next partStop / hitRest
GROOVE · 6
RUN · 1
JOIN · 2
SECTION · 2
WHOLE SONG · 1
ABOUT THIS DRUM PART

How to play Girlfriend Is Better on drums

170 bars of 4/4 at 119 BPM, about 5:43 of playing, on hi-hat, snare, mid tom and kick.

55 out of 100, a step up from a first song, and the work is in the independence between the hands and the feet.

TEMPO
119 BPM
TIME
4/4
BARS
170
LENGTH
5:43
DIFFICULTY
55/100

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 1-17, 19-29 and 31-37, and 20 more places -- 84.7% of every bar the kit plays. Learn that one and the song is very nearly finished.

    1
    1e+a2e+a3e+a4e+a
HH |x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-|
SD |----x-------x---|
BD |x-------x--x----|
Girlfriend Is Better -- the groove · x hit · o open hi-hat · g ghost note · r cross-stick · X accent

The fills

There are no fills to speak of: the part holds one beat the whole way through.

What the course does

It cuts the song into 11 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. Through the Chorus -- 2 exercises, about 30 minutes. Open above.
  3. Through the Chorus -- 2 exercises, about 30 minutes.
  4. Through the Chorus and the Verse -- 4 exercises, about 29 minutes.
  5. The whole song -- 2 exercises, about 15 minutes.
START THE COURSE ↑

Questions

What BPM is Girlfriend Is Better?

119 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 Girlfriend Is Better hard to play on drums?

55 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 40 out of 100; the rest of the number is everything around it.

How long is the drum part?

170 bars, about 5:43 at the written tempo. The course breaks it into 11 exercises over 5 sittings, about 24 minutes each.

What do I need on the kit?

hi-hat, snare, mid tom and kick. Nothing in the part asks for anything else.

READ OFF THE SCORE ITSELF · 170 BARS ANALYSED