F**king disco beats, how do they work?

**Olinea** · Joined: 19 Mar 2010 Posts: 651

Okay, as you no doubt guessed from the title, when I try and play the drums again, I want to work on cymbal rolls with the snares in between; Everlong, Assassin, Hungry Like The Wolf, Pain, you know which songs. I can do rolls pretty well, the whole 1-e-and-a-2-e-and-a-3-e (etc) works well, but when I get to these, it gets messy, and I fail out. I can do the yellows by themselves like in Lonely Is The Night or Woman From Tokyo (Perhaps not very consisently, but at least I don't fail out on 'em), but when you throw in the snares, bass, and pick up the tempo, ouch.

I'll be using a stock World Tour kit. I read somewhere that I should try and use my right hand to hit the snares; does everyone do this, or what? It just seems like it'd be really awkward; like I'd have to hit the very right side of the pad so I don't smack my left arm when I try for a snare.

And there are probably a few topics on this, but I couldn't find any others, and more input is always appreciated.

Thanks!
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**Mike65707** · Joined: 04 Oct 2007 Posts: 1477 Location: Missouri

Disco beats. Yeah they seem awkward if you aren't used to them but if you play them enough they get SO much easier. You do just as you say and hit the snare with your right hand. And yeah with the WT kit you will be hitting the right side of the pad the most.

When I was first getting used to them I'd purposely have my left arm bent to the left to give my other hand more room so I wouldn't hit myself. Now I just move it ever so slightly when I hit these or do any type of crossover.

In other words, practice practice practice. :P
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**yksi-kaksi-kolme** · Joined: 22 Jun 2008 Posts: 2803 Location: philly skramzzzz

Disco beats may be daunting at first, but once you learn them it's really hard to forget. Most disco beats will look like this:

r l r l r l r l r l r l r l r l

As you can see from the sticking, all the snares fall on reds, so yes, you will want to learn how to do "cross-unders," I suppose you could call them, to play disco beats effectively. GH kits are inherently good for this due to the raised cymbals - I tend to bend my left elbow outward to leave plenty of room for my right hand to hit the snare.

I figured I'd mention now while you're still learning that there are some animals that don't follow this sticking. Brianstorm is the only one that instantly comes to my mind:

r l r l r l r l r l r l r l r l

This is typically how I play them, keeping the strict RLRL, though some people will tell you to double-stroke. This is a very viable method due to the good rebound the GH kits have. This is how that would look:

r l r l r l r l r l r l r l l r

Or if you prefer to do your left hand for the last two snares instead of right I suppose you could even do it like this:

r l r l r l r l r l r r l r r l

However, if you want to do the straight RLRL way, GH kits' layouts again help a great deal to switch the hand with which you hit the snare. Also, notice the even number of hihats between the last two snares - you probably already know this, but any even number of hihats like that will require you to switch your snare hand (or double-stroke).

Sorry if I seemed like I was dumbing things down too much, but I wanted to be as comprehensive as possible.
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**Marbler** · Joined: 28 Feb 2009 Posts: 889

You mean you weren't using your right hand to hit the snare in the first place? Ouch. Playing fast stuff left handed is really awkward. The only disco beat I do left handed is that one on the ride in Beautiful Mourning.

...
That shit is hell. That's the only thing I'd ever recommend doing left handed.
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**Olinea** · Joined: 19 Mar 2010 Posts: 651

**Mike65707** · Joined: 04 Oct 2007 Posts: 1477 Location: Missouri

Once you have got them down, you will want to put your hands in auto-pilot and then focus on the kicks. So your goal is to get to where you can hit a disco beat (minus the kick) without thinking about your hands, so you can put all of your mind into the kicks. That's the best way I can explain it. :P

A good way to practice these would just be to take any disco beat in and play it on Slow.
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**vipergtsr7588** · Joined: 17 Aug 2007 Posts: 1060 Location: Troy, Michigan

the best way to get the bass and crossing under down is to practice. maybe listen to the song and actually focus on the beat you're having issues with. other than that, sorry, the only thing you can do is practice it until you can get it.

**ElementOfZero** · Posted: Tue Sep 07, 2010 5:10 am Post subject:

**Lupo13** · Joined: 23 Nov 2009 Posts: 79 Location: Madrid, Spain

Wait, wait, wait... So you're saying that for the disco beats, the "right" way to play them is with your RIGHT hand playing the snare? God, yesterday I managed to 5* Everlong and right now I'm feeling such a n00b...

Ciao!
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**llamaman2** · Joined: 13 Dec 2007 Posts: 957

Yep because on a normal drum set you don't have the weird crossing-under issue and your right hand is far more natural to hit the snare with. That said if you're strong left handed and can handle it can't hurt to play it left lead.

**Warhiem** · Joined: 22 Sep 2009 Posts: 1331

the crossing over isn't that bad, the snare is directly underneath the hi-hat. Always hit disco snares with your right hand, unless it's something like assassin which you hit one of the snares with your left and but don't worry about that now.
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**ARealFool** · Joined: 23 Aug 2010 Posts: 3

Most disco beats have a steady bass drum rhythm (the first one that I can think of that doesn't is Brianstorm, but that's a whole different story :P ). I'll take Hungry Like The Wolf as an example since it's probably the most simple. I think it looks like this, orange being bass drum:

R L R L R L R L R L R L R

Basically, what you can do is hit every fourth hi-hat a tad harder, as if it's accented, thereby helping you keep count and then just adding the bass drum every time you do.

It kinda sounds weird, I guess, but it's the best way I can find for wording it.

**ZEFFER13** · Joined: 05 Jun 2007 Posts: 1515 Location: Chicago, IL

And if you play with the yellow and orange all the way down raise them for these songs. Its a whole lot harder to slip your right stick in for the snare when they arent all the way up.
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**CoalfieldRocker** · Joined: 09 Sep 2008 Posts: 316 Location: Tennessee

[quote="yksi-kaksi-kolme"]
I figured I'd mention now while you're still learning that there are some animals that don't follow this sticking. Brianstorm is the only one that instantly comes to my mind:

r l r l r l r l r l r l r l r l

Assassin is also a weird one with only 2 yellows between 2 snare hits, couple that with how slow of a ride it is and it gets really awkward to hit

the best advice i can give you is to really listen to the music while you play, based on the sounds you can usually get a really good feel for when the bass hits are

and i always left-hand the snares, except when its stuff like:

like in beautiful mourning or Demon(s)

just go with what you're comfortable with, very few sections "require" the use of one hand or the other for it
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