BONNIE TYLER · DRUM BEAT

The drum beat in Total Eclipse Of The Heart

The beat the song is built on is one bar, played through bars 27-37, 76 and 80, and 9 more places -- 24.9% of every bar the kit plays. This one moves around more than most: the beat is where to start, not the whole job.

TEMPO
134 BPM
TIME
4/4
BARS
204
LENGTH
6:05
DIFFICULTY
29/100

The beat, written out

LOOP · 134 BPM
TOTAL ECLIPSE OF THE HEART · BAR 28

It is played on ride, snare and kick, counted in sixteenth notes. On its own it scores 27 out of 100 -- a fair first song -- and the thing that decides that is the independence between the hands and the feet.

The whole song is 29 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 101 BPM, and adds the notes back a rung at a time -- 3 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. Kick and snare, whole. The feet and the snare exactly as written, ride pulled back to quarter notes. This is the part to know by heart.
  2. As written. Open hi-hat, ghost notes, accents and the crash where they belong.

Tempo goes 101, 117 and 134 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 Total Eclipse Of The Heart use?

A one-bar groove on ride, snare and kick, in 4/4 at 134 BPM, counted in sixteenth notes. It is written out above, and it covers 24.9% of the bars the kit plays.

Where does the beat come in?

Bars 27-37, 76, 80 and 84, and 8 more places. The time is kept on the silence to start with, and it changes 15 times over the song.

Is the beat in Total Eclipse Of The Heart hard?

27 out of 100 on its own -- a fair first song. The song as a whole is 29 out of 100 -- a fair first song -- with the independence between the hands and the feet the part that decides it.

READ OFF THE SCORE ITSELF · 204 BARS ANALYSED