In this free drum lesson I’m going to show you what Dave Grohl plays in the Drum Solo for the outro of Song For The Dead by Queens Of The Stone Age. I have already written a free drum lesson and video drum lesson teaching the Intro Drum Solo to Song For The Dead, you can view that lesson and video drum lesson by clicking here.
This lesson was inspired by the Greatest Drum Fills List I compiled a few weeks back, now containing 100’s of famous and popular drum fills and drum solos from some of music’s greatest drummers. You can view the list by clicking here. The outro drum solo to Song For The Dead is listed in this Best Drum Fill list along with 100’s of other great drum fills and licks.
The reason this drum solo sounds so great comes down to two things; one is that Dave plays his triplets and single stroke sixteenths incredibly smoothly and evenly, making them sound even faster and more powerful than your average drummer. The other reason is that Dave’s drums were tuned and recorded using a frequency of sounds that would make any drummers ear…err, mouth water…especially mine!
Lets now take a look at this great drum solo in all it’s thumping glory. Play on…
“Song For The Dead” (QOTSA) – FREE PDF DRUM SHEET MUSIC
DOWNLOAD LINK – “Song For The Dead” (QOTSA & Dave Grohl) Free Drum Sheet Music
The tempo of the Drum Solo above is through the roof but luckily Dave doesn’t play anything too complicated. It sounds complicated when Dave plays it because it’s so fast and the tom parts are hard to distinguish, but once you work out what it is he is actually playing, it all becomes a lot simpler.
The first two bars show the double time drum groove that Dave plays leading into the first bar of triplets. For the next four and a bit lines, Dave just plays a simple “Bonham Triplet” style lick based around three notes; right hand, left hand and bass drum. All played evenly and smoothly. Check out an old drum lesson for this famous drum fill idea by clicking here.
Dave moves between the snare drum and the two toms to create the rolling snare and tom tom sound. His hands are the only thing that’s moving, the bass drum is always on the third triplet note of each beat.
On beat 3, of bar 3, on line 3 Dave begins to double up the snare drum notes by playing both the right and left hand on the snare drum. This continues up to bar 2 of line 5 where Dave moves to single handed sixteenth notes (four to every beat). Because there are now four notes to every beat instead of three triplet notes, the drums sound like they speed up but the beats of the bar are still counted the same.
After playing four sixteenths on the high tom, Dave moves back down to the snare drum for lines 6 and 7 where he pays the bass drum every beat of the bar, on the first note of every four snare drum notes. This is played SUPER fast so your single stoke roll is going to have to be up to scratch!!
The song and drum solo both end with a single crash and bass drum.
Have fun extracting the Bonham Triplet lick from this drum solo and exploring with it in your own playing. Dave Grohl has showed us one great way to move it round the drums, now it’s up to you to try out your own cool ideas.
You can DOWNLOAD the FREE PDF drum notation by clicking HERE.
Check out more drum lessons for Queens Of The Stone Age below…
- “Top 13 Essential Dave Grohl Drum Beats” – Various Drum Beats Video Drum Lesson
- “A Song For The Dead” – Drum Solo Outro Video Drum Lesson
- “Avon” – Drum Solo Video Drum Lesson
- “No One Knows” – Drum Solo 1 Video Drum Lesson
- “No One Knows” – Drum Solo 2 Video Drum Lesson
- “A Song For The Dead” – Drum Solo Intro Video Drum Lesson
- “The Lost Art Of Keeping A Secret” – Drum Solo Video Drum Lesson
- “First It Giveth” – Full Song Notation Drum Lesson
- “Feel Good Hit Of The Summer” – Full Song Video Drum Lesson
- “First It Giveth” – Full Song Video Drum Lesson
- “Go With The Flow” – Full Song Video Drum Lesson
- “Little Sister” – Full Song Video Drum Lesson
- “Make It Wit Chu” – Full Song Video Drum Lesson
- “My God Is The Sun” – Full Song Video Drum Lesson
- “No One Knows” – Full Song Video Drum Lesson
Browse all FREE drum content by clicking HERE.
Alternatively, get access to 100s of FULL-SONG Video Drum Lessons, Song Charts and eBooks by becoming an Online Member below…
Please email rob@drumstheword.com or contact me through the Contact Form if you have any questions at all.
