AGAINST ME! · DRUM BEAT

The drum beat in Baby, I'm An Anarchist

The beat the song is built on is one bar, played through bars 10-12, 14-16 and 18-20, and 9 more places -- 58.6% of every bar the kit plays. Learn that one and most of the song is already under your hands.

TEMPO
220 BPM
TIME
6/4
BARS
101
LENGTH
2:47
DIFFICULTY
23/100

The beat, written out

LOOP · 220 BPM
BABY, I'M AN ANARCHIST · BAR 11

It is played on ride, snare and kick, counted in sixteenth notes. On its own it scores 16 out of 100 -- straightforward -- and the thing that decides that is the speed of the hand keeping time.

The whole song is 23 out of 100, so the beat is most of what the song asks for. Get it clean and the rest follows.

How to get it under your hands

The room opens this beat on its simplest reduction, at 165 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, ride 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 165, 193 and 220 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 Baby, I'm An Anarchist use?

A one-bar groove on ride, snare and kick, in 6/4 at 220 BPM, counted in sixteenth notes. It is written out above, and it covers 58.6% of the bars the kit plays.

Where does the beat come in?

Bars 10-12, 14-16, 18-20 and 22-24, and 8 more places. The time is kept on the silence to start with, and it changes 2 times over the song.

Is the beat in Baby, I'm An Anarchist hard?

16 out of 100 on its own -- straightforward. The song as a whole is 23 out of 100: straightforward, and the one thing to watch is how often it moves around the kit.

READ OFF THE SCORE ITSELF · 101 BARS ANALYSED