LOKEN · DRUM BEAT

The drum beat in PROPHECY

The beat the song is built on is one bar, played through bars 48-51, 54-57 and 128-136, and 2 more places -- 20.8% of every bar the kit plays. This one moves around more than most: the beat is where to start, not the whole job.

TEMPO
110 BPM
TIME
4/4
BARS
177
LENGTH
7:18
DIFFICULTY
21/100

The beat, written out

LOOP · 110 BPM
PROPHECY · BAR 48

It is played on ride, snare and kick, counted in sixteenth notes. On its own it scores 4 out of 100 -- straightforward -- and the thing that decides that is how many limbs land on the same note.

The whole song is 21 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 83 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. 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.
  2. As written. Open hi-hat, ghost notes, accents and the crash where they belong.

Tempo goes 83, 96 and 110 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 PROPHECY use?

A one-bar groove on ride, snare and kick, in 4/4 at 110 BPM, counted in sixteenth notes. It is written out above, and it covers 20.8% of the bars the kit plays.

Where does the beat come in?

Bars 48-51, 54-57, 128-136 and 138-141, and 1 more place. The time is kept on the toms to start with, and it changes 17 times over the song.

Is the beat in PROPHECY hard?

4 out of 100 on its own -- straightforward. The song as a whole is 21 out of 100: straightforward, and the one thing to watch is how often it moves around the kit.

READ OFF THE SCORE ITSELF · 183 BARS ANALYSED