Detroit 442 and 11:59

Two songs are giving me fits. Neither are ones I knew existed prior to a month ago, and so had no idea.

Detroit 442


11:59


They've ended up surprising me. As soon as I heard Detroit 442 I knew it was fast and would be tough. I thought 11:59 was gonna be relatively easy though. Turns out that Detroit 442, while fast and full of fills and strange timing issues...is actually the easier of the two once you figure out how to play a double stroke roll (which I'm still learning to do).

But 11:59...it's harder than it sounds.

First off, it is faster than it seems. It swings and so seems slow...but over the top of the loping bass drum beat is 8th notes on the hi hat...and man those cook. I think the song comes in around 200 bpm. And then the real kicker...an open hi hat foot pattern pretty similiar to Heart of Glass (or any number of Blondie songs, I'd say this foot pattern is Clem Burke's signature move). It took me a long time to learn the pattern for Heart of Glass...but now I'm solid on it. But only with a four on the floor bass drum beat. Stick that swinging bass in and it all goes to hell.

I spent a good half hour working this last night. I can play the snare with the bass (with a quarter note hi hat hand and no hi hat foot)...the snare with the hi hat hand 8ths and foot pattern...but putting all four together is a bear. It's one of those things that, if I can ever get it, it will be a revelation...but right now it feels impossible. I know I just gotta keep working it. It's just really, really tough.

Detroit 442, which I thought would be impossible due to the speed of the rolls, ends up being hard for different reasons. The rolls are double strokes, so those go by half as fast as I thought and so are half as hard (once I get the double stroke thing down...particularly on the toms, which have less rebound). My main struggle now is that I can't quite figure out what the pattern is during the choruses. It is a floor tom pattern with quick snare fills. I'm not sure if the snare rolls are two handed or one handed...if they are two handed than the sticking pattern really matters because it is so fast and you're moving back and forth between snare and floor tom. I just can't wrap my head around what is happening, it passes too quickly for my brain to dissect.

It doesn't help, of course, that he rarely seems to play live what he played on the recordings. He takes short cuts and plays easier things live. No fair. You wrote it you ought to have to play it.

UPDATE: Just watched video REALLY carefully. At 1:44 is the part in question. He's definitely playing the snare rolls two handed and doing 8th notes on the floor tom. I can't really tell what the technique is, but it seems like he has the sticks pretty loose between thumb and finger, so he's probably using rebound to get that speed and not wrist motion for every hit...like a double. I wonder if he's keeping a constant double stroke with the right hand and a constant single stroke on 2/4 with the left hand and just moving one of the floor tom beats (two notes with one hit) to the snare...or if he plays one than one note of the roll with the left hand...it's hard to hear if it is 3 notes or 4. Probably 4.

So
Floor tom with right hand: 1 + 2 + 3 +
Snare with left hand: 2, e a (on 4th beat)
Snare with right hand: 4 +
So the right hand pattern never changes and it is just the left hand that changes (just a fill, no big deal). Then it is just about the speed and getting between the drums in time. Bass can just play along with whatever comes natural.