← SONGS

Things Can Only Get Better · Howard Jones

EXERCISE 25 OF 25
Play the whole song with the record
98 / 107 BARS COVERED
0 / 25 PASSED · 107 BARS LIT
COUNT-IN
CHORUS
PART C
CHORUS 2
PART G
PART C
PART I
PART J
CHORUS 3
OUTRO
OUTRO 2
7 groovesBCS1GI+2Fill into the next barFill that ends a sectionInto the next partStop / hitRest
GROOVE · 6
FILL · 1
LAND · 1
RUN · 1
JOIN · 9
SECTION · 6
WHOLE SONG · 1
ABOUT THIS DRUM PART

How to play Things Can Only Get Better on drums

107 bars of 4/4 at a walking 108 BPM, 3:58 of playing, on crash, hi-hat, snare, high tom, kick and hi-hat foot.

35 out of 100 -- a fair first song -- with the independence between the hands and the feet the part that decides it.

TEMPO
108 BPM
TIME
4/4
BARS
107
LENGTH
3:58
DIFFICULTY
35/100

silence through bars 1-7, snare through bars 8-20, hi-hat through bars 21-24, snare through bars 25-36, hi-hat through bars 37-48 and snare through bars 49-88, and 2 more changes after that.

The beat

The beat the song is built on is one bar, played through bars 8-20, 25-29 and 31-36, and 4 more places -- 73% of every bar the kit plays. Learn that one and the song is very nearly finished.

    8
    1e+a2e+a3e+a4e+a
SD |----x-------x---|
BD |x-----x-x-------|
HF |x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-|
Things Can Only Get Better -- the groove · x hit · o open hi-hat · g ghost note · r cross-stick · X accent

The fills

1 fill to learn, played 1 time: bar 30.

What the course does

It cuts the song into 23 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 -- B -- 3 exercises, about 26 minutes.
  2. Bars 19-36 -- 6 exercises, about 25 minutes.
  3. Bars 35-41 -- 4 exercises, about 27 minutes.
  4. Through Part C and Part I -- 3 exercises, about 22 minutes.
  5. Bars 47-53 -- 4 exercises, about 24 minutes.
  6. Bars 87-93 -- 4 exercises, about 27 minutes.
  7. The whole song -- 1 exercise, about 10 minutes. Open above.
START THE COURSE ↑

Questions

What BPM is Things Can Only Get Better?

108 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 Things Can Only Get Better hard to play on drums?

35 out of 100 -- a fair first song -- with the independence between the hands and the feet the part that decides it. The beat itself is 19 out of 100; the rest of the number is everything around it.

How long is the drum part?

107 bars, about 3:58 at the written tempo. The course breaks it into 23 exercises over 7 sittings, about 23 minutes each.

What do I need on the kit?

crash, hi-hat, snare, high 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 Things Can Only Get Better?

1 fill to learn, played 1 time: bar 30.

READ OFF THE SCORE ITSELF · 107 BARS ANALYSED