RAISED FIST · DRUM BEAT

The drum beat in Friends And Traitors

The beat the song is built on is one bar, played through bars 17-47, 49-95 and 97-111, and 1 more place -- 76.2% of every bar the kit plays. Learn that one and the song is very nearly finished.

TEMPO
260 BPM
TIME
4/4
BARS
193
LENGTH
2:58
DIFFICULTY
38/100

The beat, written out

LOOP · 260 BPM
FRIENDS AND TRAITORS · BAR 17

It is played on hi-hat, snare and kick, counted in sixteenth notes. On its own it scores 39 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 38 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 195 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. Every note, flat. All the notes, but the hi-hat stays closed and nothing is ghosted or accented.
  3. As written. Open hi-hat, ghost notes, accents and the crash where they belong.

Tempo goes 195, 228 and 260 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 Friends And Traitors use?

A one-bar groove on hi-hat, snare and kick, in 4/4 at 260 BPM, counted in sixteenth notes. It is written out above, and it covers 76.2% of the bars the kit plays.

Where does the beat come in?

Bars 17-47, 49-95, 97-111 and 161-192. The time is kept on the snare to start with, and it changes 7 times over the song.

Is the beat in Friends And Traitors hard?

39 out of 100 on its own -- a fair first song. The song as a whole is 38 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 · 193 BARS ANALYSED