Help Me · Joni Mitchell

71 bars of 4/4 at a walking 82 BPM, 3:21 of playing, on hi-hat, mid tom, floor tom and kick.

Country / FolkJazz / BluesUnder 90 BPMFour drums or fewer
TEMPO
82 BPM
TIME
4/4
BARS
71
LENGTH
3:21
DIFFICULTY
29/100
THE BEAT

One bar, and 35% of the song

The beat the song is built on is one bar, played through bars 3-10, 20-27 and 50-57 -- 35.3% of every bar the kit plays. Learn that one and most of the song is already under your hands.

LOOP · 82 BPM
HELP ME · BAR 4
THE BEAT, WRITTEN OUT →
THE SHAPE

How the song is built

71 bars across 5 sections: 62 keep time and 3 are silent. The longest unbroken stretch of time is bars 14-28.

CHORUS
PART G
OUTRO
OUTRO 2
3 groovesCGS1Fill into the next barFill that ends a sectionInto the next partStop / hitRest

Questions

What BPM is Help Me?

82 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 Help Me hard to play on drums?

29 out of 100 -- a fair first song -- with how much of it falls off the beat the part that decides it. The beat itself is 35 out of 100; the rest of the number is everything around it.

How long is the drum part?

71 bars, about 3:21 at the written tempo. The course breaks it into 12 exercises over 4 sittings, about 22 minutes each.

What do I need on the kit?

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

READ OFF THE SCORE ITSELF · 71 BARS ANALYSED
AT THIS LEVEL

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