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 beat from the song Scentless Apprentice by Nirvana. The drummer being the drumming genius Dave Grohl of course.
Here’s the drum beat in all it’s glory…
This drum beat occurs at the beginning and during the verses of the song.
Dave’s right hand is bashing out eighth notes on the hi-hat while the bass drum and snare drum perform all the action. During most of the song, Dave plays a crash on beat 1 of the bar but right at the beginning this crash cymbal is left out.
A strong backbeat is supplied on beats 2 and 4 of the bar with an extra flam snare drum note on the ‘a’ of beat 2. This is rather clever because Dave throws in the flam (played with which ever hands you feel comfortable with) in between the hi-hat notes on the ‘+’ of beat 2 and beat 3, without missing a beat! The right hand moves back to the hi-hat on beat 3, right after the flam, without the flow of hi-hat notes ever being interrupted.
The bass drum foot plays the ‘e’ of beat 2 and 4, right after the snare drum back beats, in between the hi-hat notes. There is also a bass drum on the ‘a’ of beat 4 leading straight back into beat 1. Notice how these two bass drum notes are technically played together when the bar is looped.
The bass drum notes filling the whole of beat 3 require a strong bass drum foot. The ankle needs to be used in order to play four notes in a row at this tempo. A real bass drum workout but one that will certainly improve your bass drum technique!
Download the FREE PDF Notation by clicking HERE.
