Paul Simon · 1975 · drums by Steve Gadd
50 Ways to Leave Your Lover
From Still Crazy After All These Years. Advanced · Straight · pop
Tempo
- Time signature
- 4/4
- Feel
- Straight
- Tempo band
- 90–120
- Difficulty
- Advanced
"Work up to it" opens the tempo trainer at 73 and climbs to 103 in steps of four every eight bars. Members get the climb; everyone gets the click. "Play the groove" opens the beat itself in the Groove Lab, as closely as a sixteenth grid can hold it.
What the drums do
The intro groove is a marching-band rudiment moved onto the kit: hi-hat, snare and kick weaving a sixteenth-note pattern that sounds like a drum corps and grooves like a pop song. Play it slowly with the sticking written out; it is a sticking exercise before it is a beat.
Advanced: Fast, odd, or both; the part is the reason the song is famous.
Steve Gadd
- Read the Steve Gadd feature →Who they are, how they play, and what to listen to next.
- Steve Gadd's drum rig in the Rig Vault →The kit, snare, cymbals and hardware, era by era — look for the 1975 setup.
- Log the sessionNote the BPM you got it clean at, and next time starts from there.
More Steve Gadd songs
All 3 Steve Gadd songs at tempo →
- Late in the Evening118
- Aja117
Songs at about 103 BPM
Practise these together: one click, several songs.
- Pull Me Under102
- Rusty Cage102
- Black Hole Sun105
- Heart-Shaped Box101
- Snow (Hey Oh)105
- One106