Free Drum Lesson: Muse "Assassin" - Dom Howard's Triplet Intro Drum Fill Solo

Submitted by DrumAce on Fri, 12/03/2010 - 13:34

In this free drum lesson I'll be showing you an extract from the Book Greatest Drum Beats Of All Time teaching the famous drum break at 0:29 seconds into the song Assassin by Muse.

You can view the Actual Page from the Book by clicking on the image to the right.

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Just recently, I've received a number of requests for Muse (Dom Howard) based free drum lessons. Dom is a monster drummer and, just like myself, a lot of you guys out there loves what he does from behind the drums. The man seems to write really musical and exciting drum parts!

Anyway, here is what Dominic Howard plays during his drum solo...

Assassin (Muse) Dom Howard Drum Fill/Break/Solo - 0:29

It's a sixteenth note triplet based rhythm with the sticking (hand order) staying relatively simple throughout. The basic pattern is just Right hand, Left hand, Bass Drum foot played in a smooth and evenly spaced rhythm.

Its the timing that makes this drum lick work. Each group of three notes takes up the space of one eighth note so the first six notes notated above are actually the whole of beat 1 of the bar. This means that the very last note of the bar (played on both the floor tom and the snare drum), if you count it through, lands on the '+' of beat 4.

The hand sticking moves from two notes on the snare drum to two notes on the tom toms. The left hand moves to the high tom and the right hand moves to the floor tom. This pattern of two snare and two tom toms gets played for beats 1, 2 and 3 of the bar whilst on beat 4, instead of moving back to the snare drum as in previous beats the hands stay on their respective toms. This gives the final snare drum and floor tom combo, on the '+' of beat 4, extra punch after being proceeded by six tom and bass drum notes.