GIRLFRIENDS · DRUM BEAT

The drum beat in New Computers

The beat the song is built on is one bar, played through bars 17-18, 21-22 and 25-26, and 6 more places -- 19% of every bar the kit plays. This one moves around more than most: the beat is where to start, not the whole job.

TEMPO
195 BPM
TIME
4/4
BARS
95
LENGTH
1:57
DIFFICULTY
56/100

The beat, written out

LOOP · 195 BPM
NEW COMPUTERS · BAR 17

It is played on snare and kick, counted in thirty-second notes. On its own it scores 48 out of 100 -- a step up -- and the thing that decides that is the independence between the hands and the feet.

The whole song is 56 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 146 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. As written. Open hi-hat, ghost notes, accents and the crash where they belong.

Tempo goes 146, 171 and 195 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 New Computers use?

A one-bar groove on snare and kick, in 4/4 at 195 BPM, counted in thirty-second notes. It is written out above, and it covers 19% of the bars the kit plays.

Where does the beat come in?

Bars 17-18, 21-22, 25-26 and 29-30, and 5 more places. The time is kept on the silence to start with, and it changes 9 times over the song.

Is the beat in New Computers hard?

48 out of 100 on its own -- a step up. The song as a whole is 56 out of 100, a step up from a first song, and the work is in the independence between the hands and the feet.

READ OFF THE SCORE ITSELF · 95 BARS ANALYSED