PETER TOSH · DRUM BEAT

The drum beat in Johnny B Goode

The beat the song is built on is one bar, played through bars 2, 10-16 and 18-96, and 1 more place -- 91.5% of every bar the kit plays. Learn that one and the song is very nearly finished.

TEMPO
146 BPM
TIME
4/4
BARS
118
LENGTH
3:14
DIFFICULTY
31/100

The beat, written out

LOOP · 146 BPM
JOHNNY B GOODE · BAR 11

It is played on snare and kick, counted in thirty-second notes. On its own it scores 5 out of 100 -- straightforward -- and the thing that decides that is the independence between the hands and the feet.

The whole song is 31 out of 100, so the beat is not the hard part: what costs you is everything around it, the joins and the fills.

How to get it under your hands

The room opens this beat on its simplest reduction, at 110 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.

Tempo goes 110, 128 and 146 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 Johnny B Goode use?

A one-bar groove on snare and kick, in 4/4 at 146 BPM, counted in thirty-second notes. It is written out above, and it covers 91.5% of the bars the kit plays.

Where does the beat come in?

Bars 2, 10-16, 18-96 and 98-118. The time is kept on the toms to start with, and it changes 1 time over the song.

Is the beat in Johnny B Goode hard?

5 out of 100 on its own -- straightforward. The song as a whole is 31 out of 100 -- a fair first song -- with the independence between the hands and the feet the part that decides it.

READ OFF THE SCORE ITSELF · 118 BARS ANALYSED