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If I Were a Boy · Beyonce Knowles

If I Were a Boy · Beyonce Knowles
EXERCISE 1 OF 19
Groove F -- Chorus
0 / 90 BARS COVERED
0 / 19 PASSED · 45 BARS LIT · IN THE CHORUS, CHORUS 2, OUTRO 2
COUNT-IN
PART C
CHORUS
PART S4
PART C
CHORUS 2
OUTRO
OUTRO 2
6 groovesFCS1S8S4+1Fill into the next barFill that ends a sectionInto the next partStop / hitRest
GROOVE · 2
FILL · 3
LAND · 3
RUN · 2
JOIN · 4
LINK · 1
SECTION · 3
WHOLE SONG · 1
ABOUT THIS DRUM PART

How to play If I Were a Boy on drums

90 bars of 4/4 at a walking 90 BPM, 3:59 of playing, on crash, hi-hat, high tom, mid tom, floor tom and kick.

31 out of 100 -- a fair first song -- with the independence between the hands and the feet the part that decides it.

TEMPO
90 BPM
TIME
4/4
BARS
90
LENGTH
3:59
DIFFICULTY
31/100

silence through bars 1-9, hi-hat through bars 10-33, silence through bars 34-37, kick and crashes through bars 38-41, hi-hat through bars 42-72 and silence through bars 73-78, and 1 more change after that.

The beat

The beat the song is built on is one bar, played through bars 18-24, 26-32 and 50-56, and 3 more places -- 61.6% of every bar the kit plays. Learn that one and the song is very nearly finished.

    19
    1e+a2e+a3e+a4e+a
HH |o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-|
BD |x-------x-------|
If I Were a Boy -- the groove · x hit · o open hi-hat · g ghost note · r cross-stick · X accent

The fills

3 fills to learn, played 7 times: bars 9, 17, 25, 49, 57, 78 and 1 more.

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 -- F -- 5 exercises, about 29 minutes. Open above.
  2. Bars 9-42 -- 8 exercises, about 28 minutes.
  3. Bars 42-72 -- 5 exercises, about 23 minutes.
  4. The whole song -- 1 exercise, about 10 minutes.
START THE COURSE ↑

Questions

What BPM is If I Were a Boy?

90 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 If I Were a Boy hard to play on drums?

31 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 15 out of 100; the rest of the number is everything around it.

How long is the drum part?

90 bars, about 3:59 at the written tempo. The course breaks it into 15 exercises over 4 sittings, about 23 minutes each.

What do I need on the kit?

crash, hi-hat, 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 If I Were a Boy?

3 fills to learn, played 7 times: bars 9, 17, 25, 49, 57, 78 and 1 more.

READ OFF THE SCORE ITSELF · 90 BARS ANALYSED