How Can You Mend a Broken Heart · Al Green

111 bars of 3/4 -- not four -- at 75 BPM, 6:22 of playing on crash, ride, hi-hat, snare, mid tom and kick.

Funk / SoulUnder 90 BPMShuffle / triplet
TEMPO
75 BPM
TIME
3/4
BARS
111
LENGTH
6:22
DIFFICULTY
33/100
THE BEAT

One bar, and 28% of the song

The beat the song is built on is one bar, played through bars 1-7, 9-18 and 22-24, and 3 more places -- 27.6% of every bar the kit plays. That is the spine of it; everything else is what happens around it.

LOOP · 75 BPM
HOW CAN YOU MEND A BROKEN HEART · BAR 1
THE BEAT, WRITTEN OUT →
THE FILLS

Where it comes off the beat

5 fills to learn, played 6 times: bars 74, 75, 79, 83, 93 and 97.

LOOP · 75 BPM
BAR 79 · LANDS ON BAR 80
LOOP · 75 BPM
BAR 83 · LANDS ON BAR 84
LOOP · 75 BPM
BAR 93 · LANDS ON BAR 94

2 more fills are written out on the fills page.

EVERY FILL, WRITTEN OUT →
THE SHAPE

How the song is built

111 bars across 6 sections: 92 keep time, 6 are fills and 6 are silent. The longest unbroken stretch of time is bars 1-42.

CHORUS
PART L
PART T
OUTRO
OUTRO 2
6 groovesALKS6T+1Fill into the next barFill that ends a sectionInto the next partStop / hitRest

Questions

What BPM is How Can You Mend a Broken Heart?

75 BPM, in 3/4, with the time kept in sixteenth notes. Slow enough to hear every mistake, which is why the room lets you sit at the written tempo rather than under it.

Is How Can You Mend a Broken Heart hard to play on drums?

33 out of 100 -- a fair first song -- with the independence between the hands and the feet the part that decides it. The beat itself is 18 out of 100; the rest of the number is everything around it.

How long is the drum part?

111 bars, about 6:22 at the written tempo. The course breaks it into 27 exercises over 7 sittings, about 27 minutes each.

What do I need on the kit?

crash, ride, hi-hat, snare, mid 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 How Can You Mend a Broken Heart?

5 fills to learn, played 6 times: bars 74, 75, 79, 83, 93 and 97.

READ OFF THE SCORE ITSELF · 111 BARS ANALYSED
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