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Heart-Shaped Box · Nirvana

EXERCISE 15 OF 19
Groove L
102 / 112 BARS COVERED
0 / 19 PASSED · 3 BARS LIT · IN THE OUTRO 2
PART B
CHORUS
PART B
CHORUS 2
OUTRO
OUTRO 2
3 groovesGBS1Fill into the next barFill that ends a sectionInto the next partStop / hitRest
GROOVE · 5
FILL · 3
LAND · 3
RUN · 1
JOIN · 2
LINK · 2
SECTION · 2
WHOLE SONG · 1
ABOUT THIS DRUM PART

How to play Heart-Shaped Box on drums

112 bars of 4/4 at a walking 95 BPM, 4:43 of playing, on crash, hi-hat, snare, mid tom, floor tom, kick and hi-hat foot.

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

TEMPO
95 BPM
TIME
4/4
BARS
112
LENGTH
4:43
DIFFICULTY
54/100

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 15 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, G -- 3 exercises, about 28 minutes.
  2. Through Part B and the Chorus -- 4 exercises, about 35 minutes.
  3. Bars 32-92 -- 7 exercises, about 24 minutes.
  4. Through the Outro 2 -- 4 exercises, about 26 minutes. Open above.
  5. The whole song -- 1 exercise, about 10 minutes.
START THE COURSE ↑

Questions

What BPM is Heart-Shaped Box?

95 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?

54 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 27 out of 100; the rest of the number is everything around it.

How long is the drum part?

112 bars, about 4:43 at the written tempo. The course breaks it into 15 exercises over 5 sittings, about 25 minutes each.

What do I need on the kit?

crash, hi-hat, snare, 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