CULT OF LUNA · DRUM BEAT

The drum beat in Finland

The beat the song is built on is one bar, played through bars 65-95, 97-103 and 105-119, and 1 more place -- 21% of every bar the kit plays. This one moves around more than most: the beat is where to start, not the whole job.

TEMPO
170 BPM
TIME
4/4
BARS
287
LENGTH
6:45
DIFFICULTY
43/100

The beat, written out

LOOP · 170 BPM
FINLAND · BAR 66

It is played on hi-hat, snare and kick, counted in sixteenth notes. On its own it scores 8 out of 100 -- straightforward -- and the thing that decides that is the independence between the hands and the feet.

The whole song is 43 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 128 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 128, 149 and 170 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 Finland use?

A one-bar groove on hi-hat, snare and kick, in 4/4 at 170 BPM, counted in sixteenth notes. It is written out above, and it covers 21% of the bars the kit plays.

Where does the beat come in?

Bars 65-95, 97-103, 105-119 and 121-127. The time is kept on the toms to start with, and it changes 11 times over the song.

Is the beat in Finland hard?

8 out of 100 on its own -- straightforward. The song as a whole is 43 out of 100 -- a fair first song -- with the independence between the hands and the feet the part that decides it.

READ OFF THE SCORE ITSELF · 287 BARS ANALYSED