SLIPKNOT · DRUM BEAT

The drum beat in Gently (Iowa Version)

The beat the song is built on is one bar, played through bars 1-17 and 38-39 -- 20.9% of every bar the kit plays. This one moves around more than most: the beat is where to start, not the whole job.

TEMPO
60 BPM
TIME
4/4
BARS
91
LENGTH
6:01
DIFFICULTY
70/100

The beat, written out

LOOP · 60 BPM
GENTLY (IOWA VERSION) · BAR 1

It is played on the ride, counted in thirty-second notes. On its own it scores 0 out of 100 -- straightforward -- and the thing that decides that is how fine the subdivision is.

The whole song is 70 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

A part this hard is not learned by playing it slowly and hoping. The room opens it on its simplest reduction -- the timekeeper alone, at 45 BPM -- and adds the notes back over 3 rungs, each with a tempo to reach and a gate to pass before the next.

Tempo goes 45, 53 and 60 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 Gently (Iowa Version) use?

A one-bar groove on ride, in 4/4 at 60 BPM, counted in thirty-second notes. It is written out above, and it covers 20.9% of the bars the kit plays.

Where does the beat come in?

Bars 1-17 and 38-39. The time is kept on the ride to start with, and it changes 10 times over the song.

Is the beat in Gently (Iowa Version) hard?

0 out of 100 on its own -- straightforward. The song as a whole is 70 out of 100: demanding, mostly on how much of it falls off the beat.

READ OFF THE SCORE ITSELF · 91 BARS ANALYSED