Romeo Delight · Van Halen

221 bars at 214 BPM -- fast, and 4:08 of it without a break -- on crash, ride, hi-hat, snare, high tom, mid tom, floor tom, kick and hi-hat foot.

RockMetal150 BPM and up
TEMPO
214 BPM
TIME
4/4
BARS
221
LENGTH
4:08
DIFFICULTY
60/100
THE BEAT

One bar, and 23% of the song

The beat the song is built on is one bar, played through bars 18-20, 22-24 and 26-28, and 15 more places -- 22.6% of every bar the kit plays. This one moves around more than most: the beat is where to start, not the whole job.

LOOP · 214 BPM
ROMEO DELIGHT · BAR 18
THE BEAT, WRITTEN OUT →
THE FILLS

Where it comes off the beat

5 fills to learn, played 8 times: bars 8, 32, 56, 76, 114, 150 and 2 more.

LOOP · 214 BPM
BAR 8 · LANDS ON BAR 9 · PLAYED 2 TIMES
LOOP · 214 BPM
BAR 32 · LANDS ON BAR 33 · PLAYED 2 TIMES
LOOP · 214 BPM
BAR 56 · LANDS ON BAR 57
LOOP · 214 BPM
BAR 114 · LANDS ON BAR 115 · PLAYED 2 TIMES

1 more fill is written out on the fills page.

EVERY FILL, WRITTEN OUT →
THE SHAPE

How the song is built

221 bars across 14 sections: 171 keep time, 10 are fills and 18 are stops. The longest unbroken stretch of time is bars 9-31.

CHORUS
PART J
PART F
PART D
PART D
PART AC
OUTRO 2
9 groovesADJOAC+4Fill into the next barFill that ends a sectionInto the next partStop / hitRest

Questions

What BPM is Romeo Delight?

214 BPM, in 4/4, with the time kept in sixteenth notes. At that speed the sixteenth notes are the whole difficulty, so the room will take it down to a quarter of it and climb back.

Is Romeo Delight hard to play on drums?

60 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 33 out of 100; the rest of the number is everything around it.

How long is the drum part?

221 bars, about 4:08 at the written tempo. The course breaks it into 49 exercises over 14 sittings, about 26 minutes each.

What do I need on the kit?

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

How many fills are in Romeo Delight?

5 fills to learn, played 8 times: bars 8, 32, 56, 76, 114, 150 and 2 more.

READ OFF THE SCORE ITSELF · 221 BARS ANALYSED
MORE BY THIS BAND

Other Van Halen drum parts

EVERY VAN HALEN CHART →
AT THIS LEVEL

Play something else today

EVERY SONG A-Z →