ETHEL CAIN · DRUM BEAT

The drum beat in Strangers

The beat the song is built on is one bar, played through bars 58-59, 61-63 and 65-67, and 3 more places -- 23.9% of every bar the kit plays. This one moves around more than most: the beat is where to start, not the whole job.

TEMPO
102 BPM
TIME
4/4
BARS
81
LENGTH
3:11
DIFFICULTY
24/100

The beat, written out

LOOP · 102 BPM
STRANGERS · BAR 58

It is played on crash, snare and kick, counted in sixteenth notes. On its own it scores 21 out of 100 -- straightforward -- and the thing that decides that is the independence between the hands and the feet.

The whole song is 24 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 77 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, and nothing else. 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 77, 89 and 102 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 Strangers use?

A one-bar groove on crash, snare and kick, in 4/4 at 102 BPM, counted in sixteenth notes. It is written out above, and it covers 23.9% of the bars the kit plays.

Where does the beat come in?

Bars 58-59, 61-63, 65-67 and 69-71, and 2 more places. The time is kept on the silence to start with, and it changes 8 times over the song.

Is the beat in Strangers hard?

21 out of 100 on its own -- straightforward. The song as a whole is 24 out of 100: straightforward, and the one thing to watch is the independence between the hands and the feet.

READ OFF THE SCORE ITSELF · 81 BARS ANALYSED