ABOUT THIS DRUM PART

How to play HeLa on drums

127 bars of 4/4 at 135 BPM, about 3:23 of playing, on crash, ride, hi-hat, snare, high tom, mid tom, floor tom and kick.

75 out of 100: demanding, mostly on how much of it falls off the beat.

TEMPO: 135 BPM
TIME: 4/4
BARS: 127
LENGTH: 3:23
DIFFICULTY: 75/100

kick and crashes through bar 1, toms through bars 2-14, snare through bars 15-20, hi-hat through bars 21-22, snare through bars 23-28 and toms through bars 29-30, and 16 more changes after that.

The beat

The beat the song is built on is a 2-bar phrase, played through bars 31-33, 35-36 and 74-76, and 3 more places -- 12.7% of every bar the kit plays. This one moves around more than most: the beat is where to start, not the whole job.

    31                                                               32
    1...............2...............3...............4............... 1...............2...............3...............4...............
CC |x---------------x---------------x---------------x---------------|x---------------x---------------x---------------x---------------|
SD |--------------------------------x-------------------------------|--------------------------------x-------------------------------|
BD |x-----x------x-----x------x-------------x-------x-------x-------|x----------x---------x--------------------------x---------------|

HeLa -- the groove · x hit · o open hi-hat · g ghost note · r cross-stick · X accent

The fills

10 fills to learn, played 26 times: bars 1, 2, 3, 4, 8, 9 and 20 more.

What the course does

It cuts the song into 40 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.

The grooves the song is built on -- T, O -- 2 exercises, about 30 minutes.
Through the Chorus -- 5 exercises, about 23 minutes.
The grooves the song is built on -- AW -- 5 exercises, about 27 minutes. Open above.
Through Part S2 and the Chorus 2 -- 2 exercises, about 19 minutes.
Through the Chorus 2 and Part T -- 5 exercises, about 32 minutes.
Through Part T -- 1 exercise, about 16 minutes.
Bars 37-46 -- 4 exercises, about 27 minutes.
Bars 43-63 -- 5 exercises, about 30 minutes.
and 4 more sittings after that.

START THE COURSE ↑

Questions

What BPM is HeLa?

135 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 HeLa hard to play on drums?

75 out of 100: demanding, mostly on how much of it falls off the beat. The beat itself is 52 out of 100; the rest of the number is everything around it.

How long is the drum part?

127 bars, about 3:23 at the written tempo. The course breaks it into 40 exercises over 12 sittings, about 26 minutes each.

What do I need on the kit?

crash, ride, hi-hat, snare, high tom, 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 HeLa?

10 fills to learn, played 26 times: bars 1, 2, 3, 4, 8, 9 and 20 more.

READ OFF THE SCORE ITSELF · 127 BARS ANALYSED