Smooth · Santana

141 bars of 4/4 at 116 BPM, about 4:52 of playing, on crash, ride, hi-hat, snare, high tom, mid tom, floor tom, kick and hi-hat foot.

RockJazz / Blues90 to 119 BPMBeginner
TEMPO
116 BPM
TIME
4/4
BARS
141
LENGTH
4:52
DIFFICULTY
65/100
THE BEAT

One bar, and 33% of the song

The beat the song is built on is one bar, played through bars 2, 4 and 6, and 18 more places -- 32.9% of every bar the kit plays. That is the spine of it; everything else is what happens around it.

LOOP · 116 BPM
SMOOTH · BAR 4
THE BEAT, WRITTEN OUT →
THE FILLS

Where it comes off the beat

11 fills to learn, played 41 times: bars 1, 9, 25, 34, 35, 63 and 35 more.

LOOP · 116 BPM
BAR 1 · LANDS ON BAR 2
LOOP · 116 BPM
BAR 9 · LANDS ON BAR 10 · PLAYED 4 TIMES
LOOP · 116 BPM
BARS 34-35 · LANDS ON BAR 36 · PLAYED 4 TIMES
LOOP · 116 BPM
BAR 63 · LANDS ON BAR 64

7 more fills are written out on the fills page.

EVERY FILL, WRITTEN OUT →
THE SHAPE

How the song is built

141 bars across 6 sections: 92 keep time, 41 are fills, 1 is a stop and 1 is silent. The longest unbroken stretch of time is bars 10-24.

CHORUS
CHORUS 2
PART J
OUTRO
OUTRO 2
2 groovesBJFill into the next barFill that ends a sectionInto the next partStop / hitRest

Questions

What BPM is Smooth?

116 BPM, in 4/4, with the time kept in sixteenth notes. The room plays it at any tempo from a quarter of that up to the written one, against the record where the record can follow.

Is Smooth hard to play on drums?

65 out of 100: demanding, mostly on the independence between the hands and the feet. The beat itself is 37 out of 100; the rest of the number is everything around it.

How long is the drum part?

141 bars, about 4:52 at the written tempo. The course breaks it into 26 exercises over 10 sittings, about 24 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 Smooth?

11 fills to learn, played 41 times: bars 1, 9, 25, 34, 35, 63 and 35 more.

READ OFF THE SCORE ITSELF · 141 BARS ANALYSED
MORE BY THIS BAND

Other Santana drum parts

EVERY SANTANA CHART →
AT THIS LEVEL

Play something else today

EVERY SONG A-Z →