Uploaded April 2021 | Updated September 2026, 2 weeks ago
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Songs written by ryanmajoris.com
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Before I sit down at the drums to play to a song, I spend a few days listening to the song until I'm able to play the song back to myself from memory. I used to rush the process and jump on the drums right away, and for some reason I'd wonder why my parts didn't feel right, or why I was getting lost. I need to know how the song goes before I'm able to create a part for it, so I listen to it until I know it. It's no different than when you hear a new song and after a few listens it gets stuck in your head and you catch yourself absentmindedly singing it as you're going about your day.
As I'm going through the listening phase, I also start brainstorming some ideas for drum parts. Nothing is set in stone, but I start coming up with ideas so that I'm not starting from scratch when I do sit down at the drums to play to it. Sometimes the ideas survive once I get to the drums, sometimes I decide they don't work the way I thought they would and have to try something else. A good example of this would be the beginning of this song. The intro riff reminds me a lot of Incubus, and originally I was thinking some kind of tom beat would work well, since Incubus does that a lot. However once I started trying things out on the drums, it didn't feel "right." It worked, but it never felt 100% and also seemed a little bit random because I wasn't going back to any tom beats for any other part of the song. So I changed my mind. I was still thinking of Incubus, but I decided to try a different approach. I'm pretty sure what I end up playing at the beginning is exactly what Jose does in the intro to Anna Molly haha. But it works, and it ties into the rest of the song a lot better than my tom idea did. So I went with it.
After the intro part, I naturally felt like I should accentuate the guitar changes, so that's what I did. For any students of mine reading this, that rhythm is Grid #7, with an 8th note pulse instead of a 16th note pulse. In fact, #7 pops up all over this song. I'm really not kidding when I tell you that that rhythm is everywhere.
The stripped down bass part had me feeling a little lost for a bit, I really wasn't sure what I was going to do for it. Pulling from my musical history, I was planning on doing a Travis Barker-esque tom beat when the guitar riff came in, but the part didn't develop the way I expected it to so that wasn't working. By the time I sat down at the drums I was still a little unsure about this part, but I found myself playing kick/snare/hi-hat and decided those sounds worked really well with that part, so I decided to accentuate the start of the guitar riff with the floor tom and then settle into my beat.
Getting to the chorus, if you're one of my students you should recognize those beats from Essential Beats. 6a/b and 3a/b. The first time I listened to the track it was the version with the click, so that quarter note pulse got stuck in my head, which is where 6a/b came from. I alter my kick pattern from Essential Beats in order to support the melody, but it's basically the same beat. I was also planning on leaving out a few bass drums for 3a/b as well, but the constant bass drums felt the best, so I stuck with them. I'm also not kidding when I tell you that the Essential Beats are everywhere (8b also makes a few appearances). For the bridge of the song, I continue with a 6a/b variation and 3a/b, except I flip them around to start with 3a/b (in the chorus I start with 6a/b). That's just what I heard, and it felt good when I played it.
The last thing worth mentioning is the transitional hits part that ties the intro into the stripped down bass part. That part pops up a lot throughout the song, and I decided to keep my part pretty much the same every time I played it. I used to always try to do something different, but sometimes less is more. The notes are the same, why shouldn't the drum part be? It can help establish familiarity with the listener, which is sometimes the way you want to go (in this case I decided it was the way to go). I think there are a few minor orchestration changes when I play it at the end of the song, but other than that it's pretty much the same every time. Also, those hits are Grid #7. Again, it's everywhere.
#victorthedrummerguyapril2021 #victorthedrummerguyapril2022 #onlinedrumlessons #playdrums
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Songs written by ryanmajoris.com
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Before I sit down at the drums to play to a song, I spend a few days listening to the song until I'm able to play the song back to myself from memory. I used to rush the process and jump on the drums right away, and for some reason I'd wonder why my parts didn't feel right, or why I was getting lost. I need to know how the song goes before I'm able to create a part for it, so I listen to it until I know it. It's no different than when you hear a new song and after a few listens it gets stuck in your head and you catch yourself absentmindedly singing it as you're going about your day.
As I'm going through the listening phase, I also start brainstorming some ideas for drum parts. Nothing is set in stone, but I start coming up with ideas so that I'm not starting from scratch when I do sit down at the drums to play to it. Sometimes the ideas survive once I get to the drums, sometimes I decide they don't work the way I thought they would and have to try something else. A good example of this would be the beginning of this song. The intro riff reminds me a lot of Incubus, and originally I was thinking some kind of tom beat would work well, since Incubus does that a lot. However once I started trying things out on the drums, it didn't feel "right." It worked, but it never felt 100% and also seemed a little bit random because I wasn't going back to any tom beats for any other part of the song. So I changed my mind. I was still thinking of Incubus, but I decided to try a different approach. I'm pretty sure what I end up playing at the beginning is exactly what Jose does in the intro to Anna Molly haha. But it works, and it ties into the rest of the song a lot better than my tom idea did. So I went with it.
After the intro part, I naturally felt like I should accentuate the guitar changes, so that's what I did. For any students of mine reading this, that rhythm is Grid #7, with an 8th note pulse instead of a 16th note pulse. In fact, #7 pops up all over this song. I'm really not kidding when I tell you that that rhythm is everywhere.
The stripped down bass part had me feeling a little lost for a bit, I really wasn't sure what I was going to do for it. Pulling from my musical history, I was planning on doing a Travis Barker-esque tom beat when the guitar riff came in, but the part didn't develop the way I expected it to so that wasn't working. By the time I sat down at the drums I was still a little unsure about this part, but I found myself playing kick/snare/hi-hat and decided those sounds worked really well with that part, so I decided to accentuate the start of the guitar riff with the floor tom and then settle into my beat.
Getting to the chorus, if you're one of my students you should recognize those beats from Essential Beats. 6a/b and 3a/b. The first time I listened to the track it was the version with the click, so that quarter note pulse got stuck in my head, which is where 6a/b came from. I alter my kick pattern from Essential Beats in order to support the melody, but it's basically the same beat. I was also planning on leaving out a few bass drums for 3a/b as well, but the constant bass drums felt the best, so I stuck with them. I'm also not kidding when I tell you that the Essential Beats are everywhere (8b also makes a few appearances). For the bridge of the song, I continue with a 6a/b variation and 3a/b, except I flip them around to start with 3a/b (in the chorus I start with 6a/b). That's just what I heard, and it felt good when I played it.
The last thing worth mentioning is the transitional hits part that ties the intro into the stripped down bass part. That part pops up a lot throughout the song, and I decided to keep my part pretty much the same every time I played it. I used to always try to do something different, but sometimes less is more. The notes are the same, why shouldn't the drum part be? It can help establish familiarity with the listener, which is sometimes the way you want to go (in this case I decided it was the way to go). I think there are a few minor orchestration changes when I play it at the end of the song, but other than that it's pretty much the same every time. Also, those hits are Grid #7. Again, it's everywhere.
#victorthedrummerguyapril2021 #victorthedrummerguyapril2022 #onlinedrumlessons #playdrums
