“No Woman, No Cry” — Bob Marley & The Wailers: drum beat

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The famous live version from 1975 uses a slow, patient one drop. Leave space and let each cross-stick breathe.

Tempo
78 BPM
Time signature
12/8
Groove
one drop reggae beat
Genre
Reggae
Difficulty
Easy
Loop
4 bars

Drum pattern

Main groove × 3
Hi-hat
Cross-stick
Kick
Fill × 1
Hi-hat
Snare
Cross-stick
Kick

Each row is one drum, each column one step. Large dots are accents, small dots normal hits, faint dots ghost notes.

Who plays what: notes per bar

Cymbal hand8
Snare hand1
Kick foot1
All three together1

Every kick lines up with a cymbal stroke, which makes this one of the easiest coordination patterns to start with.

About this groove

At about 78 BPM it has a slow tempo: one beat lasts 769 ms and a 12/8 bar takes 3.1 seconds. Use the tempo buttons to slow it down while you learn.

Practice plan

BPM

Learn At 78 BPM, “No Woman, No Cry” is faster than 6% of the 150 songs in our catalogue. See all song tempos →

74 103 BPM No Woman, No Cry · 78
Tempo among our reggae songs

Step-by-step breakdown of the one drop reggae beat →

How it differs from similar beats

Compared with “Sweet Home Chicago” (The Blues Brothers, shuffle), this groove leaves out the kick on 1, adds snare accents on 3 and drops the snare on 2, 2a, 4 and 4a — and it runs 32 BPM slower. If you can already play that one, this is your next step. Sweet Home Chicago →

“One Drop” (Bob Marley & The Wailers) uses exactly the same simplified pattern, 2 BPM slower — a good warm-up before this one. One Drop →

Other songs with the same one drop reggae beat

Similar drum beats

This is a simplified rhythm pattern in the style of “No Woman, No Cry” by Bob Marley & The Wailers, written for drum practice. It is not a transcription of the recording and contains no audio, lyrics or artwork. Drums3D is not affiliated with Bob Marley & The Wailers.