AC/DC · DRUM BEAT

The drum beat in Can't Stand Still

The beat the song is built on is one bar, played through bars 25-93 -- 71.1% of every bar the kit plays. Learn that one and the song is very nearly finished.

TEMPO
114 BPM
TIME
4/4
BARS
98
LENGTH
3:26
DIFFICULTY
50/100

The beat, written out

LOOP · 114 BPM
CAN'T STAND STILL · BAR 26

It is played on hi-hat, snare and kick, counted in sixteenth notes. On its own it scores 44 out of 100 -- a fair first song -- and the thing that decides that is the independence between the hands and the feet.

The whole song is 50 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 86 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 86, 100 and 114 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 Can't Stand Still use?

A one-bar groove on hi-hat, snare and kick, in 4/4 at 114 BPM, counted in sixteenth notes. It is written out above, and it covers 71.1% of the bars the kit plays.

Where does the beat come in?

Bars 25-93. The time is kept on the hi-hat to start with, and it changes 1 time over the song.

Is the beat in Can't Stand Still hard?

44 out of 100 on its own -- a fair first song. The song as a whole is 50 out of 100, a step up from a first song, and the work is in the independence between the hands and the feet.

READ OFF THE SCORE ITSELF · 98 BARS ANALYSED