STEVIE RAY VAUGHAN · DRUM BEAT

The drum beat in Tin Pan Alley (AKA Roughest Place In Town)

The beat the song is built on is one bar, played through bars 3-12, 14-33 and 35, and 4 more places -- 78% of every bar the kit plays. Learn that one and the song is very nearly finished.

TEMPO
38 BPM
TIME
6/4
BARS
87
LENGTH
13:36
DIFFICULTY
44/100

The beat, written out

LOOP · 38 BPM
TIN PAN ALLEY (AKA ROUGHEST PLACE IN TOWN) · BAR 3

It is played on hi-hat, snare and kick, counted in thirty-second notes. On its own it scores 21 out of 100 -- straightforward -- and the thing that decides that is how fine the subdivision is.

The whole song is 44 out of 100, so the beat is not the hard part: what costs you is everything around it, the joins and the fills.

How to get it under your hands

There is not much to reduce here -- the room opens it near enough as written, at 40 BPM, and asks for it clean before it moves.

  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.

Two tempos only, 40 and 38 BPM, and the gate at each is 8 loops in a row with no wrong note and no wobble in the time.

PRACTISE THIS BEAT →

Questions

What drum beat does Tin Pan Alley (AKA Roughest Place In Town) use?

A one-bar groove on hi-hat, snare and kick, in 6/4 at 38 BPM, counted in thirty-second notes. It is written out above, and it covers 78% of the bars the kit plays.

Where does the beat come in?

Bars 3-12, 14-33, 35 and 39-40, and 3 more places. The time is kept on the hi-hat to start with, and it changes 1 time over the song.

Is the beat in Tin Pan Alley (AKA Roughest Place In Town) hard?

21 out of 100 on its own -- straightforward. The song as a whole is 44 out of 100 -- a fair first song -- with how fine the subdivision is the part that decides it.

READ OFF THE SCORE ITSELF · 87 BARS ANALYSED