Life On Mars? · David Bowie

87 bars of 4/4 at 128 BPM, about 2:43 of playing, on crash, hi-hat, snare, high tom, mid tom, floor tom and kick.

PopRock120 to 149 BPM
TEMPO
128 BPM
TIME
4/4
BARS
87
LENGTH
2:43
DIFFICULTY
40/100
THE BEAT

One bar, and 35% of the song

The beat the song is built on is one bar, played through bars 7-10, 12 and 14-16, and 7 more places -- 34.9% of every bar the kit plays. That is the spine of it; everything else is what happens around it.

LOOP · 128 BPM
LIFE ON MARS? · BAR 9
THE BEAT, WRITTEN OUT →
THE FILLS

Where it comes off the beat

1 fill to learn, played 2 times: bars 86 and 87.

LOOP · 128 BPM
BARS 86-87 · PLAYED 2 TIMES
EVERY FILL, WRITTEN OUT →
THE SHAPE

How the song is built

87 bars across 6 sections: 66 keep time, 2 are fills, 9 are stops and 4 are silent. The longest unbroken stretch of time is bars 5-25.

CHORUS
PART A
PART H
OUTRO
OUTRO 2
4 groovesDHAS1Fill into the next barFill that ends a sectionInto the next partStop / hitRest

Questions

What BPM is Life On Mars??

128 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 Life On Mars? hard to play on drums?

40 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 30 out of 100; the rest of the number is everything around it.

How long is the drum part?

87 bars, about 2:43 at the written tempo. The course breaks it into 17 exercises over 5 sittings, about 27 minutes each.

What do I need on the kit?

crash, hi-hat, snare, 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 Life On Mars??

1 fill to learn, played 2 times: bars 86 and 87.

READ OFF THE SCORE ITSELF · 87 BARS ANALYSED
MORE BY THIS BAND

Other David Bowie drum parts

EVERY DAVID BOWIE CHART →
AT THIS LEVEL

Play something else today

EVERY SONG A-Z →