HEATHERS: THE MUSICAL · DRUM BEAT

The drum beat in Seventeen

The beat the song is built on is one bar, played through bars 64-70, 72-74 and 76-78 -- 18.8% of every bar the kit plays. This one moves around more than most: the beat is where to start, not the whole job.

TEMPO
192 BPM
TIME
4/4
BARS
111
LENGTH
2:23
DIFFICULTY
41/100

The beat, written out

LOOP · 192 BPM
SEVENTEEN · BAR 65

It is played on ride, snare and kick, counted in sixteenth notes. On its own it scores 40 out of 100 -- a fair first song -- and the thing that decides that is the independence between the hands and the feet.

The whole song is 41 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 144 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. 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.
  2. As written. Open hi-hat, ghost notes, accents and the crash where they belong.

Tempo goes 144, 168 and 192 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 Seventeen use?

A one-bar groove on ride, snare and kick, in 4/4 at 192 BPM, counted in sixteenth notes. It is written out above, and it covers 18.8% of the bars the kit plays.

Where does the beat come in?

Bars 64-70, 72-74 and 76-78. The time is kept on the toms to start with, and it changes 9 times over the song.

Is the beat in Seventeen hard?

40 out of 100 on its own -- a fair first song. The song as a whole is 41 out of 100 -- a fair first song -- with the independence between the hands and the feet the part that decides it.

READ OFF THE SCORE ITSELF · 111 BARS ANALYSED