DEF LEPPARD · DRUM BEAT

The drum beat in Don't Shoot Shotgun

The beat the song is built on is one bar, played through bars 49-51, 53 and 86-88, and 9 more places -- 19.3% of every bar the kit plays. This one moves around more than most: the beat is where to start, not the whole job.

TEMPO
131 BPM
TIME
4/4
BARS
142
LENGTH
4:20
DIFFICULTY
51/100

The beat, written out

LOOP · 131 BPM
DON'T SHOOT SHOTGUN · BAR 51

It is played on crash, hi-hat, snare and kick, counted in sixteenth notes. On its own it scores 31 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 51 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 98 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 98, 115 and 131 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 Don't Shoot Shotgun use?

A one-bar groove on crash, hi-hat, snare and kick, in 4/4 at 131 BPM, counted in sixteenth notes. It is written out above, and it covers 19.3% of the bars the kit plays.

Where does the beat come in?

Bars 49-51, 53, 86-88 and 90, and 8 more places. The time is kept on the snare to start with, and it changes 2 times over the song.

Is the beat in Don't Shoot Shotgun hard?

31 out of 100 on its own -- a fair first song. The song as a whole is 51 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 · 142 BARS ANALYSED