AALA · DRUM BEAT

The drum beat in AALA Song

The beat the song is built on is one bar, played through bars 31, 35 and 47-55, and 1 more place -- 16.4% of every bar the kit plays. This one moves around more than most: the beat is where to start, not the whole job.

TEMPO
200 BPM
TIME
4/4
BARS
144
LENGTH
2:53
DIFFICULTY
20/100

The beat, written out

LOOP · 200 BPM
AALA SONG · BAR 31

It is played on snare and kick, counted in sixteenth notes. On its own it scores 10 out of 100 -- straightforward -- and the thing that decides that is the independence between the hands and the feet.

The whole song is 20 out of 100, so the beat is not the hard part: what costs you is everything around it, the joins and the fills.

How to get it under your hands

The room opens this beat on its simplest reduction, at 150 BPM, and adds the notes back a rung at a time -- 3 of them. Nothing is a matter of opinion: each rung has a tempo to reach and a gate to pass before the next one.

  1. Skeleton. Only the notes that land on a beat. The point is to feel where this bar stands.
  2. As written. Open hi-hat, ghost notes, accents and the crash where they belong.

Tempo goes 150, 175 and 200 BPM, and the gate at each one is 8 loops in a row with no wrong note and no wobble in the time.

PRACTISE THIS BEAT →

Questions

What drum beat does AALA Song use?

A one-bar groove on snare and kick, in 4/4 at 200 BPM, counted in sixteenth notes. It is written out above, and it covers 16.4% of the bars the kit plays.

Where does the beat come in?

Bars 31, 35, 47-55 and 60-67. The time is kept on the silence to start with, and it changes 11 times over the song.

Is the beat in AALA Song hard?

10 out of 100 on its own -- straightforward. The song as a whole is 20 out of 100: straightforward, and the one thing to watch is the independence between the hands and the feet.

READ OFF THE SCORE ITSELF · 144 BARS ANALYSED