← SONGS

The Blacker The Berry · Kendrick Lamar

EXERCISE 1 OF 7
Groove C -- Chorus (a two-bar phrase)
0 / 93 BARS COVERED
0 / 7 PASSED · 67 BARS LIT · IN THE CHORUS, CHORUS 2, OUTRO 2
CHORUS
CHORUS 2
OUTRO 2
4 groovesCS1S3S5Fill into the next barFill that ends a sectionInto the next partStop / hitRest
GROOVE · 2
RUN · 1
JOIN · 2
SECTION · 1
WHOLE SONG · 1
ABOUT THIS DRUM PART

How to play The Blacker The Berry on drums

93 bars of 4/4 at a walking 88 BPM, 4:14 of playing, on hi-hat, snare and kick.

53 out of 100, a step up from a first song, and the work is in the independence between the hands and the feet.

TEMPO
88 BPM
TIME
4/4
BARS
93
LENGTH
4:14
DIFFICULTY
53/100

silence through bars 1-4, hi-hat through bars 5-37, silence through bars 38-40, hi-hat through bars 41-65, silence through bars 66-68 and hi-hat through bars 69-93.

The beat

The beat the song is built on is a 2-bar phrase, played through bars 6-10, 12-18 and 20-26, and 10 more places -- 80.7% of every bar the kit plays. Learn that one and the song is very nearly finished.

    8                9
    1e+a2e+a3e+a4e+a 1e+a2e+a3e+a4e+a
HH |------X---o-g---|g-g---X-g-g---X-|
SD |----x-------x---|----x-------x---|
BD |x-x----xx-x-----|x-x----xx-x----x|
The Blacker The Berry -- the groove · x hit · o open hi-hat · g ghost note · r cross-stick · X accent

The fills

There are no fills to speak of: the part holds one beat the whole way through.

What the course does

It cuts the song into 6 exercises -- the grooves, the fills, and the joins between sections, which is where players actually come off -- and puts them in the order a teacher would. Each one opens on a reduction you can already play and adds the notes back a rung at a time, with a tempo to reach and a gate to pass before the next.

  1. The grooves the song is built on -- C -- 3 exercises, about 32 minutes.
  2. The whole song -- 4 exercises, about 24 minutes.
START THE COURSE ↑

Questions

What BPM is The Blacker The Berry?

88 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 The Blacker The Berry hard to play on drums?

53 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 40 out of 100; the rest of the number is everything around it.

How long is the drum part?

93 bars, about 4:14 at the written tempo. The course breaks it into 6 exercises over 2 sittings, about 28 minutes each.

What do I need on the kit?

hi-hat, snare and kick. 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 · 93 BARS ANALYSED