LITTLE FEAT · DRUM BEAT

The drum beat in Time Loves a Hero

The beat the song is built on is one bar, played through bars 25-26, 46-47 and 50-51, and 2 more places -- 19.4% of every bar the kit plays. This one moves around more than most: the beat is where to start, not the whole job.

TEMPO
69 BPM
TIME
4/4
BARS
74
LENGTH
4:17
DIFFICULTY
64/100

The beat, written out

LOOP · 69 BPM
TIME LOVES A HERO · BAR 60

It is played on hi-hat, snare and kick, counted in sixteenth notes. On its own it scores 56 out of 100 -- a step up -- and the thing that decides that is how much of it falls off the beat.

The whole song is 64 out of 100, so the beat is most of what the song asks for. Get it clean and the rest follows.

How to get it under your hands

The room opens this beat on its simplest reduction, at 45 BPM, and adds the notes back a rung at a time -- 4 of them. Nothing is a matter of opinion: each rung has a tempo to reach and a gate to pass before the next one.

  1. Skeleton. Only the notes that land on a beat. The point is to feel where this bar stands.
  2. Kick and snare, whole. The feet and the snare exactly as written, hi-hat pulled back to quarter notes. This is the part to know by heart.
  3. As written. Open hi-hat, ghost notes, accents and the crash where they belong.

Tempo goes 45, 53, 61 and 69 BPM, and the gate at each one is 8 loops in a row with no wrong note and no wobble in the time.

PRACTISE THIS BEAT →

Questions

What drum beat does Time Loves a Hero use?

A one-bar groove on hi-hat, snare and kick, in 4/4 at 69 BPM, counted in sixteenth notes. It is written out above, and it covers 19.4% of the bars the kit plays.

Where does the beat come in?

Bars 25-26, 46-47, 50-51 and 60-61, and 1 more place. The time is kept on the hi-hat to start with, and it changes 2 times over the song.

Is the beat in Time Loves a Hero hard?

56 out of 100 on its own -- a step up. The song as a whole is 64 out of 100, a step up from a first song, and the work is in the independence between the hands and the feet.

READ OFF THE SCORE ITSELF · 74 BARS ANALYSED