Pop drum beat at 100 BPM
Press Play for a pop drum beat at 100 BPM. It starts with Motown Pocket, and you can switch to Billie Jean Pocket and Four-on-the-Floor. One beat lasts 600 ms.
Playing over a pop drum beat at 100 BPM
100 BPM is a comfortable middle tempo for pop. Use it to play whole songs or long improvisations without stopping; the fills every few bars tell you where each phrase ends.
What plays at 100 BPM
Motown Pocket is written at 112 BPM, the closest of this style's grooves to 100 BPM, so it opens first and plays a little slower than written. In 4/4 at this tempo a quarter note lasts 600 ms, an eighth note 300 ms and a sixteenth 150 ms, which is the spacing of the hi-hat you hear. Switch to Billie Jean Pocket and Four-on-the-Floor on the page and the tempo stays at 100 BPM.
How long is a phrase at 100 BPM?
Knowing how long a phrase lasts helps you plan a song, a solo or a recording take. The drums play a fill at the end of every four or eight bars, so these are the lengths you will hear.
| Length | Time |
|---|---|
| One bar of 4/4 | 2.4 seconds |
| Four-bar phrase | 9.6 seconds |
| Eight-bar section | 19 seconds |
| Three-minute song | about 75 bars |
How a pop drum beat works
Pop drums leave space for the vocal. The pattern repeats with very little variation, so any timing wobble in your own part stands out. That makes a pop groove a good test of whether you can play a simple part in the pocket for three minutes.
How to play along
Keep chords short and rhythmic rather than letting them ring over the whole bar. Match the length of your notes to the hi-hat. Singers can use the kick pattern as the grid for phrasing a verse.