Description
Notes From John
BPM = 138, in 4/4. The guitars have the riff to themselves for four bars, and the drums come in on sixteenths marked “tambourine or hi-hat”, accented on two and four, for three and a half bars before a sextuplet fill with the sticking printed above it, R L R L. The groove lands on a crash: hi-hat eighths, the snare on two and four, the kick around it. The Verses keep the hat eighths over kick pairs on one and three, written as a bar and repeats counted to four. The Choruses put the kick and snare together on the quarter notes under the hat, the fours that Ian MacDonald hears as Starr’s nod to Al Jackson of Booker T. & the M.G.’s. The Solo at 1:20 drives snare eighths over kick quarters, and the build under “Ahhhh…” adds open-hat circles, doubles the kick to eighths and finishes on accented hat sixteenths. Both Re-Intros start on a crash and a rest; the second one waits three more bars before the “tambourine or hi-hat” sixteenths come back. The Outro under “Day tripper…” mixes open-hat eighths, flammed triplet figures and sextuplet fills, and the last bar is a crash and kick on the downbeat. The section boxes carry the record’s timestamps.
For the player
Ringo Starr plays drums and the overdubbed tambourine on the 1965 single, and John’s chart follows that recording. Serve the riff, don’t thicken it: the part arrives in stages, tambourine or hat first, then the kit after the fill, and the Choruses hold to kick and snare on the quarters as written. Play the printed sticking through the sextuplets. At BPM = 138 the job is the feel.
Drums Sheet Music for “Day Tripper” by The Beatles.
