VILI SMITHS · DRUM BEAT

The drum beat in Nikad više

The beat the song is built on is one bar, played through bars 1-56, 58-72 and 75-87, and 2 more places -- 96.5% of every bar the kit plays. Learn that one and the song is very nearly finished.

TEMPO
130 BPM
TIME
4/4
BARS
114
LENGTH
3:30
DIFFICULTY
26/100

The beat, written out

LOOP · 130 BPM
NIKAD VIŠE · BAR 5

It is played on snare and kick, counted in sixteenth notes. On its own it scores 13 out of 100 -- straightforward -- and the thing that decides that is the independence between the hands and the feet.

The whole song is 26 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 98 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 98, 114 and 130 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 Nikad više use?

A one-bar groove on snare and kick, in 4/4 at 130 BPM, counted in sixteenth notes. It is written out above, and it covers 96.5% of the bars the kit plays.

Where does the beat come in?

Bars 1-56, 58-72, 75-87 and 89-97, and 1 more place.

Is the beat in Nikad više hard?

13 out of 100 on its own -- straightforward. The song as a whole is 26 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 · 114 BARS ANALYSED