NIRVANA · DRUM BEAT

The drum beat in Jesus Doesn't Want Me for a Sunbeam (MTV Unplugged)

The beat the song is built on is one bar, played through bars 2-9, 26-73 and 88, and 1 more place -- 90.6% of every bar the kit plays. Learn that one and the song is very nearly finished.

TEMPO
113 BPM
TIME
4/4
BARS
110
LENGTH
3:54
DIFFICULTY
0/100

The beat, written out

LOOP · 113 BPM
JESUS DOESN'T WANT ME FOR A SUNBEAM (MTV UNPLUGGED) · BAR 2

It is played on kick and hi-hat foot, counted in sixteenth notes. On its own it scores 0 out of 100 -- straightforward -- and the thing that decides that is how fine the subdivision is.

The whole song is 0 out of 100, so the beat is most of what the song asks for. Get it clean and the rest follows.

How to get it under your hands

The room opens this beat on its simplest reduction, at 85 BPM, and adds the notes back a rung at a time -- 3 of them. Nothing is a matter of opinion: each rung has a tempo to reach and a gate to pass before the next one.

  1. Skeleton. Only the notes that land on a beat. The point is to feel where this bar stands.
  2. Kick and snare, whole. The feet and the snare exactly as written, and nothing else. This is the part to know by heart.
  3. As written. Open hi-hat, ghost notes, accents and the crash where they belong.

Tempo goes 85, 99 and 113 BPM, and the gate at each one is 8 loops in a row with no wrong note and no wobble in the time.

PRACTISE THIS BEAT →

Questions

What drum beat does Jesus Doesn't Want Me for a Sunbeam (MTV Unplugged) use?

A one-bar groove on kick and hi-hat foot, in 4/4 at 113 BPM, counted in sixteenth notes. It is written out above, and it covers 90.6% of the bars the kit plays.

Where does the beat come in?

Bars 2-9, 26-73, 88 and 90-109. The time is kept on the kick and crashes to start with, and it changes 4 times over the song.

Is the beat in Jesus Doesn't Want Me for a Sunbeam (MTV Unplugged) hard?

0 out of 100 on its own -- straightforward. The song as a whole is 0 out of 100: straightforward, and the one thing to watch is how little of it repeats.

READ OFF THE SCORE ITSELF · 110 BARS ANALYSED