LEVIATHAN · DRUM BEAT

The drum beat in The Idiot Sun

The beat the song is built on is one bar, played through bars 1-20, 24-70 and 72-118, and 2 more places -- 83.2% of every bar the kit plays. Learn that one and the song is very nearly finished.

TEMPO
105 BPM
TIME
3/4
BARS
293
LENGTH
8:39
DIFFICULTY
32/100

The beat, written out

LOOP · 105 BPM
THE IDIOT SUN · BAR 3

It is played on hi-hat and snare, counted in sixteenth notes. On its own it scores 0 out of 100 -- straightforward -- and the thing that decides that is how fine the subdivision is.

The whole song is 32 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 79 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. Every note, flat. All the notes, but the hi-hat stays closed and nothing is ghosted or accented.
  3. As written. Open hi-hat, ghost notes, accents and the crash where they belong.

Tempo goes 79, 92 and 105 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 The Idiot Sun use?

A one-bar groove on hi-hat and snare, in 3/4 at 105 BPM, counted in sixteenth notes. It is written out above, and it covers 83.2% of the bars the kit plays.

Where does the beat come in?

Bars 1-20, 24-70, 72-118 and 120-167, and 1 more place. The time is kept on the hi-hat to start with, and it changes 5 times over the song.

Is the beat in The Idiot Sun hard?

0 out of 100 on its own -- straightforward. The song as a whole is 32 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 · 293 BARS ANALYSED