ERIC CLAPTON · DRUM BEAT

The drum beat in River Of Tears

The beat the song is built on is one bar, played through bars 1-7, 9-23 and 25-75, and 1 more place -- 97.6% of every bar the kit plays. Learn that one and the song is very nearly finished.

TEMPO
115 BPM
TIME
6/4
BARS
126
LENGTH
6:34
DIFFICULTY
21/100

The beat, written out

LOOP · 115 BPM
RIVER OF TEARS · BAR 1

It is played on ride and snare, counted in sixteenth notes. On its own it scores 16 out of 100 -- straightforward -- and the thing that decides that is how many notes a second it asks for.

The whole song is 21 out of 100, so the beat is most of what the song asks for. Get it clean and the rest follows.

How to get it under your hands

The room opens this beat on its simplest reduction, at 86 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.

  1. Skeleton. Only the notes that land on a beat. The point is to feel where this bar stands.
  2. Kick and snare, whole. The feet and the snare exactly as written, ride pulled back to quarter notes. This is the part to know by heart.
  3. As written. Open hi-hat, ghost notes, accents and the crash where they belong.

Tempo goes 86, 101 and 115 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 River Of Tears use?

A one-bar groove on ride and snare, in 6/4 at 115 BPM, counted in sixteenth notes. It is written out above, and it covers 97.6% of the bars the kit plays.

Where does the beat come in?

Bars 1-7, 9-23, 25-75 and 77-84. The time is kept on the ride to start with, and it changes 1 time over the song.

Is the beat in River Of Tears hard?

16 out of 100 on its own -- straightforward. The song as a whole is 21 out of 100: straightforward, and the one thing to watch is how often it moves around the kit.

READ OFF THE SCORE ITSELF · 126 BARS ANALYSED