Description
Notes From John
BPM = 85, in 4/4. The Intro is hi-hat eighths alone, marked ppp, and the hat carries on alone into Verse 1 until a short snare fill at mf brings in the groove on a crash: hat eighths, the snare on two and four, and the kick mostly on one and the and of two. Verse 2 keeps that groove and closes on a snare-and-tom fill under a crescendo hairpin. The Chorus at 1:03 is marked f and opens on a crash. Verse 3 drops back to mf and builds to sixteenths on the snare and toms under another hairpin. The Solo moves the hat to sixteenths. Verse 4 at 2:34 changes the texture: snare sixteenths with the inner notes bracketed and accents on two and four, over the kick and hi-hat foot, building into the last Chorus at f. The Breakdown, Short Chorus and Outro hold the eighth-note groove with crashes at the phrase starts, and the last bar is a crash and kick on the downbeat. The section boxes carry the record’s timestamps.
For the player
Phil Jones plays drums and tambourine on the Full Moon Fever recording, and John’s chart follows that album version. Let the hat carry it: the opening ppp eighths run alone into Verse 1, and the dynamics climb from there through mf to f. Play the bracketed snare notes in Verse 4 as printed under the accents on two and four. At BPM = 85 the job is the feel.
Drums Sheet Music for “Free Fallin'” by Tom Petty.
