Summer Nights · Van Halen

88 bars of 4/4 at a walking 92 BPM, 3:50 of playing, on crash, snare and hi-hat foot.

RockPop90 to 119 BPMFour drums or fewer
TEMPO
92 BPM
TIME
4/4
BARS
88
LENGTH
3:50
DIFFICULTY
18/100
THE BEAT

One bar, and 95% of the song

The beat the song is built on is one bar, played through bars 14-30, 32-35 and 37-74, and 2 more places -- 94.7% of every bar the kit plays. Learn that one and the song is very nearly finished.

LOOP · 92 BPM
SUMMER NIGHTS · BAR 14
THE BEAT, WRITTEN OUT →
THE SHAPE

How the song is built

88 bars across 2 sections: 75 keep time and 13 are silent. The longest unbroken stretch of time is bars 14-88.

COUNT-IN
OUTRO
2 groovesBS1Fill into the next barFill that ends a sectionInto the next partStop / hitRest

Questions

What BPM is Summer Nights?

92 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 Summer Nights hard to play on drums?

18 out of 100: straightforward, and the one thing to watch is the independence between the hands and the feet. The beat itself is 4 out of 100; the rest of the number is everything around it.

How long is the drum part?

88 bars, about 3:50 at the written tempo. The course breaks it into 5 exercises over 2 sittings, about 22 minutes each.

What do I need on the kit?

crash, snare and hi-hat foot. Three pieces and no more -- this one is playable on almost anything with a kick, a snare and something to keep time on.

READ OFF THE SCORE ITSELF · 88 BARS ANALYSED
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