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Heart Shaped Box · Nirvana

EXERCISE 1 OF 28
Groove B -- Chorus (a two-bar phrase)
0 / 112 BARS COVERED
0 / 28 PASSED · 49 BARS LIT · IN THE CHORUS, CHORUS 2, CHORUS 3
CHORUS
PART F
PART H
CHORUS 2
PART F
PART H
CHORUS 3
OUTRO
OUTRO 2
4 groovesBFHS1Fill into the next barFill that ends a sectionInto the next partStop / hitRest
GROOVE · 6
FILL · 3
LAND · 3
RUN · 2
JOIN · 5
LINK · 5
SECTION · 3
WHOLE SONG · 1
ABOUT THIS DRUM PART

How to play Heart Shaped Box on drums

112 bars of 4/4 at a walking 100 BPM, 4:29 of playing, on crash, hi-hat, snare, high tom, mid tom, floor tom, kick and hi-hat foot.

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

TEMPO
100 BPM
TIME
4/4
BARS
112
LENGTH
4:29
DIFFICULTY
50/100

silence through bars 1-4, hi-hat through bars 5-19, toms through bars 20-21, hi-hat through bars 22-51, toms through bars 52-53 and hi-hat through bars 54-91, and 3 more changes after that.

The beat

The beat the song is built on is a 2-bar phrase, played through bars 5-19, 37-51 and 73-91 -- 45.4% of every bar the kit plays. Learn that one and most of the song is already under your hands.

    5                6
    1e+a2e+a3e+a4e+a 1e+a2e+a3e+a4e+a
HH |x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-|x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-|
SD |----x-------x---|----r---r---r---|
BD |x-x-----x-x-----|x-x-------------|
Heart Shaped Box -- the groove · x hit · o open hi-hat · g ghost note · r cross-stick · X accent

The fills

3 fills to learn, played 4 times: bars 34, 66, 68 and 111.

What the course does

It cuts the song into 24 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 -- B, F -- 3 exercises, about 27 minutes. Open above.
  2. Through the Chorus and Part F -- 3 exercises, about 30 minutes.
  3. Through the Chorus and Part F -- 3 exercises, about 24 minutes.
  4. Bars 26-109 -- 4 exercises, about 29 minutes.
  5. Bars 32-72 -- 8 exercises, about 30 minutes.
  6. Bars 69-112 -- 6 exercises, about 24 minutes.
  7. The whole song -- 1 exercise, about 10 minutes.
START THE COURSE ↑

Questions

What BPM is Heart Shaped Box?

100 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 Heart Shaped Box hard to play on drums?

50 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 28 out of 100; the rest of the number is everything around it.

How long is the drum part?

112 bars, about 4:29 at the written tempo. The course breaks it into 24 exercises over 7 sittings, about 25 minutes each.

What do I need on the kit?

crash, 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 Heart Shaped Box?

3 fills to learn, played 4 times: bars 34, 66, 68 and 111.

READ OFF THE SCORE ITSELF · 112 BARS ANALYSED