MICHAEL BENNETT · DRUM BEAT

The drum beat in “Ashes in the Air” and “Scars of the Flame” – Heartbreaking Slow Rock Performance

The beat the song is built on is one bar, played through bars 13-19, 21-27 and 29-33, and 2 more places -- 26.9% of every bar the kit plays. That is the spine of it; everything else is what happens around it.

TEMPO
92 BPM
TIME
4/4
BARS
163
LENGTH
8:29
DIFFICULTY
25/100

The beat, written out

LOOP · 92 BPM
“ASHES IN THE AIR” AND “SCARS OF THE FLAME” – HEARTBREAKING SLOW ROCK PERFORMANCE · BAR 14

It is played on hi-hat, snare and kick, counted in sixteenth notes. On its own it scores 9 out of 100 -- straightforward -- and the thing that decides that is the speed of the hand keeping time.

The whole song is 25 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 69 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. Kick and snare, whole. The feet and the snare exactly as written, hi-hat pulled back to quarter notes. This is the part to know by heart.
  2. As written. Open hi-hat, ghost notes, accents and the crash where they belong.

Tempo goes 69, 81 and 92 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 “Ashes in the Air” and “Scars of the Flame” – Heartbreaking Slow Rock Performance use?

A one-bar groove on hi-hat, snare and kick, in 4/4 at 92 BPM, counted in sixteenth notes. It is written out above, and it covers 26.9% of the bars the kit plays.

Where does the beat come in?

Bars 13-19, 21-27, 29-33 and 41-47, and 1 more place. The time is kept on the silence to start with, and it changes 17 times over the song.

Is the beat in “Ashes in the Air” and “Scars of the Flame” – Heartbreaking Slow Rock Performance hard?

9 out of 100 on its own -- straightforward. The song as a whole is 25 out of 100 -- a fair first song -- with how often it moves around the kit the part that decides it.

READ OFF THE SCORE ITSELF · 163 BARS ANALYSED