METALLICA · DRUM BEAT

The drum beat in Slither

The beat the song is built on is one bar, played through bars 20-21, 24-25 and 28-29, and 11 more places -- 17.2% 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
145
LENGTH
5:06
DIFFICULTY
60/100

The beat, written out

LOOP · 110 BPM
SLITHER · BAR 21

It is played on hi-hat, snare and kick, counted in thirty-second notes. On its own it scores 42 out of 100 -- a fair first song -- and the thing that decides that is how fine the subdivision is.

The whole song is 60 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, hi-hat 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 Slither use?

A one-bar groove on hi-hat, snare and kick, in 4/4 at 110 BPM, counted in thirty-second notes. It is written out above, and it covers 17.2% of the bars the kit plays.

Where does the beat come in?

Bars 20-21, 24-25, 28-29 and 45-46, and 10 more places. The time is kept on the kick and crashes to start with, and it changes 15 times over the song.

Is the beat in Slither hard?

42 out of 100 on its own -- a fair first song. The song as a whole is 60 out of 100, a step up from a first song, and the work is in how fine the subdivision is.

READ OFF THE SCORE ITSELF · 145 BARS ANALYSED