← SONGS

Mean · Taylor Swift

EXERCISE 12 OF 14
Play the whole song with the record
66 / 80 BARS COVERED
0 / 14 PASSED · 80 BARS LIT
COUNT-IN
CHORUS
PART E
BREAK
OUTRO
OUTRO 2
4 groovesBES1S4Fill into the next barFill that ends a sectionInto the next partStop / hitRest
GROOVE · 4
FILL · 2
LAND · 2
RUN · 1
JOIN · 1
LINK · 1
SECTION · 2
WHOLE SONG · 1
ABOUT THIS DRUM PART

How to play Mean on drums

80 bars of 4/4 at a walking 82 BPM, 3:53 of playing, on crash, hi-hat, snare, mid tom, floor tom and kick.

53 out of 100, a step up from a first song, and the work is in the independence between the hands and the feet.

TEMPO
82 BPM
TIME
4/4
BARS
80
LENGTH
3:53
DIFFICULTY
53/100

silence through bars 1-9, hi-hat through bars 10-53, kick and crashes through bars 54-55, silence through bars 56-58 and hi-hat through bars 59-80.

The beat

The beat the song is built on is one bar, played through bars 19-20, 37-53 and 69-78 -- 42% of every bar the kit plays. Learn that one and most of the song is already under your hands.

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

The fills

2 fills to learn, played 2 times: bars 68 and 79.

What the course does

It cuts the song into 11 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 -- E, B -- 2 exercises, about 24 minutes.
  2. Through the Chorus -- 3 exercises, about 34 minutes.
  3. Bars 10-69 -- 6 exercises, about 23 minutes.
  4. The whole song -- 3 exercises, about 15 minutes. Open above.
START THE COURSE ↑

Questions

What BPM is Mean?

82 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 Mean hard to play on drums?

53 out of 100, a step up from a first song, and the work is in the independence between the hands and the feet. The beat itself is 58 out of 100; the rest of the number is everything around it.

How long is the drum part?

80 bars, about 3:53 at the written tempo. The course breaks it into 11 exercises over 4 sittings, about 24 minutes each.

What do I need on the kit?

crash, 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.

How many fills are in Mean?

2 fills to learn, played 2 times: bars 68 and 79.

READ OFF THE SCORE ITSELF · 80 BARS ANALYSED