KANYE WEST · DRUM BEAT

The drum beat in God Is

The beat the song is built on is one bar, played through bars 1-7, 9-17 and 19, and 14 more places -- 47% of every bar the kit plays. Learn that one and most of the song is already under your hands.

TEMPO
105 BPM
TIME
4/4
BARS
75
LENGTH
3:22
DIFFICULTY
22/100

The beat, written out

LOOP · 105 BPM
GOD IS · BAR 2

It is played on snare and kick, counted in sixteenth notes. On its own it scores 4 out of 100 -- straightforward -- and the thing that decides that is the independence between the hands and the feet.

The whole song is 22 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 79 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.

Tempo goes 79, 92 and 105 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 God Is use?

A one-bar groove on snare and kick, in 4/4 at 105 BPM, counted in sixteenth notes. It is written out above, and it covers 47% of the bars the kit plays.

Where does the beat come in?

Bars 1-7, 9-17, 19 and 21, and 13 more places. The time is kept on the hi-hat to start with, and it changes 3 times over the song.

Is the beat in God Is hard?

4 out of 100 on its own -- straightforward. The song as a whole is 22 out of 100: straightforward, and the one thing to watch is the independence between the hands and the feet.

READ OFF THE SCORE ITSELF · 75 BARS ANALYSED