VEX (REALLY MAINLY BY LIA) · DRUM BEAT

The drum beat in look at me now

The beat the song is built on is one bar, played through bars 17, 19 and 21, and 40 more places -- 47.8% of every bar the kit plays. Learn that one and most of the song is already under your hands.

TEMPO
180 BPM
TIME
4/4
BARS
128
LENGTH
2:51
DIFFICULTY
39/100

The beat, written out

LOOP · 180 BPM
LOOK AT ME NOW · BAR 17

It is played on hi-hat, snare and kick, counted in sixteenth notes. On its own it scores 31 out of 100 -- a fair first song -- and the thing that decides that is the speed of the hand keeping time.

The whole song is 39 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 135 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, hi-hat 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 135, 158 and 180 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 look at me now use?

A one-bar groove on hi-hat, snare and kick, in 4/4 at 180 BPM, counted in sixteenth notes. It is written out above, and it covers 47.8% of the bars the kit plays.

Where does the beat come in?

Bars 17, 19, 21 and 23, and 39 more places. The time is kept on the silence to start with, and it changes 1 time over the song.

Is the beat in look at me now hard?

31 out of 100 on its own -- a fair first song. The song as a whole is 39 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 · 128 BARS ANALYSED