Karma Police · Radiohead

78 bars, 4:20, at 72 BPM: slow enough that every note is exposed. Crash, ride, hi-hat, snare, mid tom, floor tom and kick and nothing else.

Under 90 BPM
TEMPO
72 BPM
TIME
4/4
BARS
78
LENGTH
4:20
DIFFICULTY
37/100
THE BEAT

One bar, and 43% of the song

The beat the song is built on is one bar, played through bars 9, 11 and 13, and 21 more places -- 43.3% of every bar the kit plays. Learn that one and most of the song is already under your hands.

LOOP · 72 BPM
KARMA POLICE · BAR 11
THE BEAT, WRITTEN OUT →
THE SHAPE

How the song is built

78 bars across 7 sections: 52 keep time, 2 are stops and 18 are silent. The longest unbroken stretch of time is bars 58-78.

COUNT-IN
CHORUS
PART S3
PART B
PART S5
OUTRO
OUTRO 2
5 groovesCBS1S3S5Fill into the next barFill that ends a sectionInto the next partStop / hitRest

Questions

What BPM is Karma Police?

72 BPM, in 4/4, 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 Karma Police hard to play on drums?

37 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 21 out of 100; the rest of the number is everything around it.

How long is the drum part?

78 bars, about 4:20 at the written tempo. The course breaks it into 12 exercises over 4 sittings, about 23 minutes each.

What do I need on the kit?

crash, ride, hi-hat, snare, mid tom, floor tom and kick. That is most of a full kit; the part moves around it rather than sitting in one place.

READ OFF THE SCORE ITSELF · 78 BARS ANALYSED
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