Take On Me a-ha · A-Ha

174 bars at 165 BPM -- fast, and 4:14 of it without a break -- on crash, hi-hat, snare, mid tom, kick and hi-hat foot.

150 BPM and up
TEMPO
165 BPM
TIME
4/4
BARS
174
LENGTH
4:14
DIFFICULTY
47/100
THE BEAT

One bar, and 20% of the song

The beat the song is built on is a 2-bar phrase, played through bars 15-21, 97-107 and 109-112, and 1 more place -- 20.1% of every bar the kit plays. This one moves around more than most: the beat is where to start, not the whole job.

LOOP · 165 BPM
TAKE ON ME A-HA · BARS 15-16
THE BEAT, WRITTEN OUT →
THE FILLS

Where it comes off the beat

3 fills to learn, played 4 times: bars 64, 119, 120 and 148.

LOOP · 165 BPM
BAR 64 · LANDS ON BAR 65
LOOP · 165 BPM
BARS 119-120 · LANDS ON BAR 121 · PLAYED 2 TIMES
LOOP · 165 BPM
BAR 148 · LANDS ON BAR 149
EVERY FILL, WRITTEN OUT →
THE SHAPE

How the song is built

174 bars across 18 sections: 137 keep time, 4 are fills, 3 are stops and 10 are silent. The longest unbroken stretch of time is bars 16-33.

CHORUS
PART J
PART F
PART R
CHORUS 2
PART O
PART X
OUTRO
14 groovesCOFRJ+9Fill into the next barFill that ends a sectionInto the next partStop / hitRest

Questions

What BPM is Take On Me a-ha?

165 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 Take On Me a-ha 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 24 out of 100; the rest of the number is everything around it.

How long is the drum part?

174 bars, about 4:14 at the written tempo. The course breaks it into 52 exercises over 14 sittings, about 26 minutes each.

What do I need on the kit?

crash, hi-hat, snare, mid 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 Take On Me a-ha?

3 fills to learn, played 4 times: bars 64, 119, 120 and 148.

READ OFF THE SCORE ITSELF · 174 BARS ANALYSED
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