LEGIÃO URBANA · DRUM BEAT

The drum beat in Metal Contra As Nuvens

The beat the song is built on is one bar, played through bars 90-92, 94 and 96, and 24 more places -- 23% of every bar the kit plays. This one moves around more than most: the beat is where to start, not the whole job.

TEMPO
85 BPM
TIME
4/4
BARS
242
LENGTH
11:23
DIFFICULTY
43/100

The beat, written out

LOOP · 85 BPM
METAL CONTRA AS NUVENS · BAR 133

It is played on hi-hat, snare and kick, counted in sixteenth notes. On its own it scores 24 out of 100 -- straightforward -- and the thing that decides that is the independence between the hands and the feet.

The whole song is 43 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 64 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 64, 74 and 85 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 Metal Contra As Nuvens use?

A one-bar groove on hi-hat, snare and kick, in 4/4 at 85 BPM, counted in sixteenth notes. It is written out above, and it covers 23% of the bars the kit plays.

Where does the beat come in?

Bars 90-92, 94, 96 and 98, and 23 more places. The time is kept on the kick and crashes to start with, and it changes 3 times over the song.

Is the beat in Metal Contra As Nuvens hard?

24 out of 100 on its own -- straightforward. The song as a whole is 43 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 · 242 BARS ANALYSED