Helicopter · Bloc Party

157 bars at 169 BPM -- fast, and 3:40 of it without a break -- on crash, hi-hat, snare, mid tom, floor tom, kick and hi-hat foot.

Alternative / IndiePop150 BPM and upIntermediate
TEMPO
169 BPM
TIME
4/4
BARS
157
LENGTH
3:40
DIFFICULTY
70/100
THE BEAT

One bar, and 18% of the song

The beat the song is built on is one bar, played through bars 49-51, 53-55 and 57-59, and 7 more places -- 18.2% of every bar the kit plays. This one moves around more than most: the beat is where to start, not the whole job.

LOOP · 169 BPM
HELICOPTER · BAR 50
THE BEAT, WRITTEN OUT →
THE FILLS

Where it comes off the beat

13 fills to learn, played 26 times: bars 4, 8, 16, 24, 32, 38 and 20 more.

LOOP · 169 BPM
BAR 4 · LANDS ON BAR 5 · PLAYED 3 TIMES
LOOP · 169 BPM
BAR 8 · LANDS ON BAR 9
LOOP · 169 BPM
BAR 16 · LANDS ON BAR 17 · PLAYED 2 TIMES
LOOP · 169 BPM
BAR 24 · LANDS ON BAR 25

9 more fills are written out on the fills page.

EVERY FILL, WRITTEN OUT →
THE SHAPE

How the song is built

157 bars across 14 sections: 102 keep time, 30 are fills, 9 are stops and 3 are silent. The longest unbroken stretch of time is bars 105-119.

CHORUS
PART G
CHORUS 2
PART M
PART S
CHORUS 3
PART M
PART S
PART C
CHORUS 4
PART S
7 groovesDSMCG+2Fill into the next barFill that ends a sectionInto the next partStop / hitRest

Questions

What BPM is Helicopter?

169 BPM, in 4/4, with the time kept in sixteenth notes. At that speed the sixteenth notes are the whole difficulty, so the room will take it down to a quarter of it and climb back.

Is Helicopter hard to play on drums?

70 out of 100: demanding, mostly on 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?

157 bars, about 3:40 at the written tempo. The course breaks it into 50 exercises over 16 sittings, about 26 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 Helicopter?

13 fills to learn, played 26 times: bars 4, 8, 16, 24, 32, 38 and 20 more.

READ OFF THE SCORE ITSELF · 157 BARS ANALYSED
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