RAIMUNDOS · DRUM BEAT

The drum beat in I Saw You Saying

The beat the song is built on is one bar, played through bars 29-36, 55-63 and 67-74, and 2 more places -- 44.4% of every bar the kit plays. Learn that one and most of the song is already under your hands.

TEMPO
120 BPM
TIME
4/4
BARS
95
LENGTH
3:10
DIFFICULTY
16/100

The beat, written out

LOOP · 120 BPM
I SAW YOU SAYING · BAR 29

It is played on crash, ride and snare, counted in sixteenth notes. On its own it scores 18 out of 100 -- straightforward -- and the thing that decides that is how many notes a second it asks for.

The whole song is 16 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 90 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. Skeleton. Only the notes that land on a beat. The point is to feel where this bar stands.
  2. Kick and snare, whole. The feet and the snare exactly as written, ride pulled back to quarter notes. This is the part to know by heart.
  3. As written. Open hi-hat, ghost notes, accents and the crash where they belong.

Tempo goes 90, 105 and 120 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 I Saw You Saying use?

A one-bar groove on crash, ride and snare, in 4/4 at 120 BPM, counted in sixteenth notes. It is written out above, and it covers 44.4% of the bars the kit plays.

Where does the beat come in?

Bars 29-36, 55-63, 67-74 and 76-88, and 1 more place. The time is kept on the snare to start with, and it changes 7 times over the song.

Is the beat in I Saw You Saying hard?

18 out of 100 on its own -- straightforward. The song as a whole is 16 out of 100: straightforward, and the one thing to watch is how often it moves around the kit.

READ OFF THE SCORE ITSELF · 95 BARS ANALYSED