Sloop John B · Me First and the Gimme Gimmes

98 bars at 200 BPM -- fast, and 1:58 of it without a break -- on crash, snare, mid tom, floor tom, kick and hi-hat foot.

Alternative / IndiePunk150 BPM and up
TEMPO
200 BPM
TIME
4/4
BARS
98
LENGTH
1:58
DIFFICULTY
47/100
THE BEAT

One bar, and 37% of the song

The beat the song is built on is one bar, played through bars 46-60 and 78-96 -- 37% of every bar the kit plays. Learn that one and most of the song is already under your hands.

LOOP · 200 BPM
SLOOP JOHN B · BAR 46
THE BEAT, WRITTEN OUT →
THE FILLS

Where it comes off the beat

3 fills to learn, played 3 times: bars 61, 77 and 97.

LOOP · 200 BPM
BAR 61 · LANDS ON BAR 62
LOOP · 200 BPM
BAR 77 · LANDS ON BAR 78
LOOP · 200 BPM
BAR 97 · LANDS ON BAR 98
EVERY FILL, WRITTEN OUT →
THE SHAPE

How the song is built

98 bars across 9 sections: 72 keep time, 3 are fills, 9 are stops and 6 are silent. The longest unbroken stretch of time is bars 79-96.

PART A
PART S2
PART G
PART A
CHORUS
PART K
OUTRO 2
6 groovesIAKGS2+1Fill into the next barFill that ends a sectionInto the next partStop / hitRest

Questions

What BPM is Sloop John B?

200 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 Sloop John B hard to play on drums?

47 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 50 out of 100; the rest of the number is everything around it.

How long is the drum part?

98 bars, about 1:58 at the written tempo. The course breaks it into 24 exercises over 6 sittings, about 27 minutes each.

What do I need on the kit?

crash, snare, 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 Sloop John B?

3 fills to learn, played 3 times: bars 61, 77 and 97.

READ OFF THE SCORE ITSELF · 98 BARS ANALYSED
AT THIS LEVEL

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