Purple Rain · Prince

94 bars, 6:17, at 58 BPM: slow enough that every note is exposed. Crash, ride, hi-hat, snare, high tom, mid tom, floor tom and kick and nothing else.

Funk / SoulPopUnder 90 BPMBeginner
TEMPO
58 BPM
TIME
4/4
BARS
94
LENGTH
6:17
DIFFICULTY
51/100
THE BEAT

One bar, and 45% of the song

The beat the song is built on is one bar, played through bars 5-11, 14-20 and 24-29, and 3 more places -- 45.1% of every bar the kit plays. Learn that one and most of the song is already under your hands.

LOOP · 58 BPM
PURPLE RAIN · BAR 17
THE BEAT, WRITTEN OUT →
THE SHAPE

How the song is built

94 bars across 3 sections: 89 keep time and 3 are silent. The longest unbroken stretch of time is bars 4-57.

OUTRO
VERSE
3 groovesCGS1Fill into the next barFill that ends a sectionInto the next partStop / hitRest

Questions

What BPM is Purple Rain?

58 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 Purple Rain hard to play on drums?

51 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 27 out of 100; the rest of the number is everything around it.

How long is the drum part?

94 bars, about 6:17 at the written tempo. The course breaks it into 8 exercises over 3 sittings, about 24 minutes each.

What do I need on the kit?

crash, ride, 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.

READ OFF THE SCORE ITSELF · 94 BARS ANALYSED
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