The use of the drum kit in grunge

Hello, and welcome to the first lesson in our unit entitled the Sound of '90s Grunge. This lesson is called the Use of the Drum Kit in Grunge. My name is Mr. Norris, I'm gonna be taking you through this whole unit, where we're gonna be exploring this really interesting style of rock music, looking at some of the key features of it, learning about the social significance of it, and having to go do some composition in this style as well. It's a really fun one to do. I hope you get a lot out of it and take not only some really interesting knowledge about this style away with you, but also some really useful musical skills that will be useful to apply in other styles and other contexts as well. So without further ado, let's get started. Our outcome for today's lesson is that I can identify the key features of grunge and its drum beats and have created a grunge-style drum beat. So as that implies there, we're really focusing in on the use of drums in grunge today, and in future lessons, we'll be looking at at how other instruments and other aspects of the the musical style are formed. Our keywords for today, so the first is grunge. And grunge is a style of heavy rock music featuring distorted guitar sounds and angry lyrics. Riff, a riff is a short, repeated musical idea that forms the basis of a pop or rock song. And thirdly, distortion. Distortion is a fuzzy effect often added to guitar sounds. So we're gonna be exploring these words and how they interact in grunge throughout the lesson. The first section we're gonna be looking at is the key features of grunge, so let's get to it. Grunge is a style of rock music that emerged in the USA in the late 1980s, and it became popular in the 1990s. So although most people think of grunge as a 1990s style, it did actually emerge at the end of the late 1980s. It grew out of two key rock music styles, which are called punk rock and heavy metal, and we're gonna dig a little bit into those now. So what do you know about these styles? There's two clips here, one of a heavy metal song and one of a punk rock song, and I like to have a think about, as you're listening to these, some of the key features of these styles. What do you associate with them? What musical features do you associate them, but also what cultural features, what style, what sort of attitude and lyrics would you associate with these styles of music? So you can pause my video, have a listen to these clips, and have a think about what you associate with these two styles of music. Okay, so it's a look at some of the key features of those styles. Heavy metal was based around an aggressive style of playing and singing, driving rhythms, strong, powerful riffs, and the use of distortion on guitars, and we'll get into what distortion is in a second. So you should have heard those features in that heavy metal clip you listened to a second ago. Quite a lot of aggression in the way that both instruments are played and the singing is done, really driving, energetic rhythms, and strong, powerful riffs. Punk rock is slightly different. It's based around angry lyrics, and often, these lyrics are what we call anti-establishment. So they'll be railing against, they'll be opposing the establishment and the sort of normal way of society, and they'll be a bit rebellious of the lyrics. High energy levels, it's a really energetic style of rock music, punk rock. It also uses riffs, and this is an important similarity is that both of these styles use riffs, and quite a simple instrumentation. So often, punk rock band would just have an electric guitar, a bass guitar, a drum kit, and a singer. Now, we're gonna listen to a clip of grunge. Now, which of the above features from those two styles can you hear in this clip? So pause my video, listen to the clip, and pick out which features from those two styles you can hear here. Let's go. So let's see what we heard in that grunge clip then. Now, firstly, grunge uses simple instrumentation. So we can normally expect vocals, electric guitar, bass guitar and drum kits. Sometimes, there might be a second electric guitar, but it's generally quite a simple instrumentation, like we have there. And that ties in with instrumentation you might get in punk rock, which is generally quite simple. We have riffs, so these short, repeating musical ideas that go throughout large sections of the song. And it has that in common with both punk rock and heavy metal, as well as a lot of other styles of rock music really. It has dark and angry lyrics, so this ties in, to an extent, with the kind of lyrics we might have in punk rock, but there are different themes that come up as well in grunge, it's slightly different. And then distortion on guitars, and again, we'll talk about what that is in a second. So listen again to this clip of a distorted guitar. How might you describe the sound, and try and compare it in your head to what your normal, clean guitar sound might sound like if you were just to pick up a guitar and play it right now. So pause my video, have a listen to this, and think about how you would describe that distorted sound on the guitar. Let's look at what distortion is then. So distortion is a fuzzy effect often used on electric guitars that distorts the sound and makes it less clear. If we distort something, it means we kind of hide it or disguise it a little bit, make it less clear. So that's that that effect is doing there to the guitar sound. Sometimes, it's called drive. So on a guitar, an electric guitar or on an amplifier, you might sometimes see a switch or a dial that says drive, that is the same thing as distortion. So if you turn that on, you are turning distortion on. It's just another word for the same thing. Let's listen now to this short clip of an electric guitar without distortion. I'll play it for you now. (dramatic guitar music) Okay, so try to remember what that sounded like. And this time, we're gonna listen to the exact same notes played on the guitar but with distortion this time, and try and compare the sounds, try and listen for the difference and how we've got that buzzy effect going on this time. I'll play it for you now. (dramatic heavy guitar music) So hopefully you heard there that the sound is very different. The first one had quite a clean sound, that's what we call a clean guitar sound, where there was none of that fuzzy, distorted effect, and the second one had this really fuzzy, crunchy sort of sound added to it. And that is really key feature of the grunge sound, as well as quite a lot of other styles of rock music, but it is particularly important in grunge. So here's our key features of grunge, dark and angry lyrics, simple instrumentation, distortion on guitars, use of riffs, and then often, there's a contrast in energy between calm and angry sections as well. So we hear these real extremes of mood within one song. Pause my video in a second. You're gonna listen to this clip of a grunge song, and try and identify which of those key features can you hear in this clip. So you can pause my video and have a go at that now. So let's see then which of those features we could identify. It did feature simple instrumentation. There was an electric guitar, bass guitar, drum kit, and vocals. There was distortion on the guitars. There was definitely use of riffs, so repeating, short musical ideas. And then there was a contrast in energy between the two sections as well. The one key feature that's a little bit less clear in that one is the lyrics, and that's 'cause the meaning of the lyrics is a little bit unclear, it's a little bit what we say ambiguous, it's not exactly clear what it's talking about. So we might say it features that, we might not, it's a little bit unclear, that one. So well done if you managed to identify that that clip featured those four key features of grunge, and as we listen to more examples of grunge, we'll likely to be hearing those same features as well. So let's check your understanding. There are three clips here. You're gonna listen to all three clips and identify which clip includes a guitar using distortion. So you can pause my video, have a listen and try and work out which clip has distortion on the guitar. Let's see what the correct answer is then. So it was clip C that featured distortion on the guitar, and the other two, they did feature electric guitar, they were also examples of different types of rock music, but the guitar sound was a clean guitar sound. It didn't have that buzzy, crunchy effect that comes with distortion. Well done if you got that one right. Second question, what does grunge have in common with both heavy metal and punk rock? Is it the use of distortion on guitar, is it an aggressive style of singing and playing, or is it the use of riffs? So I'll give you a few seconds to work that one out, making sure you're thinking about what it has in common with both of those styles. See if you can work that one out. So a few seconds left to come up with your answer. And let's see the answer then. So the correct answer was the use of riffs, and that's because distortion, so option A, is almost always used in heavy metal, but it's not always used in punk rock, an aggressive style of singing and playing is a really typical feature of heavy metal, but less so in punk rock, but a use of riffs is common to both styles. So well done if you've got that. Okay, it's time for task A now. So there are two clips here to listen to. You're gonna listen to each clip twice and try and complete the table, and what we're doing is we're answering those questions on the left hand side for each clip. So the first question says is the guitar heavily distorted? Is there distortion on the guitar? What instruments can you hear? Does it use a riff? If so, which instruments play the riff? Is there a big contrast in energy between the sections? So different moods between the different sections of the song. And could this, therefore, be an example of grunge? So you can pause my video, listen to each click twice, give this your best shot, and then we'll go over the answers. Let's go through our answers for this one then. So in clip one, the guitar is heavily distorted. There's an electric guitar, bass guitar, drum kit, and vocals. It does use a riff on the electric and bass guitars. That is a big contrast in energy between sections, and so therefore, this could be an example of grunge because of those features, that it has the distortion, the instrumentation, the riff, and the contrast. So well done if you filled in those correctly. For clip two, there is not distortion on the guitar, it has the same instrumentation, and it has a riff on both electric and bass guitars, so there's some similarity between the clips here, but there is not a big contrast in energy between the sections, and because of that and the lack of distortion, this is probably unlikely to be an example of grunge. So you can pause my video and quickly check your answers and then when you're ready, we'll move on to the second part of our lesson. Next, we're gonna look at the use of the drum kit in grunge. So we looked at some of the key features. Now, we're gonna hone in on how the drum kit is used in this style. Grunge drumming has some similar features to a typical rock beat. You listen to this example of a classic rock song, and I'd like to try and identify what are the kick, snare, and hi-hat doing in this clip? So pause my video, try and identify what those three aspects of the drum kit are doing in this clip. Let's analyze that drum beat then. So in this rock beat, the kick plays on beats one and three. That's really typical. The snare plays the backbeat of two and four, and then the hi-hat plays constant quavers over the top. So this is a really standard rock beat. We've got kick and snare, boom-boom-cat, boom-cat alternating between the two, and then we've got hi-hat, (Mr. Norris intimating hi-hat) throughout playing quavers as well. That's our typical rock beat. There are some variations that we might have typically to this drum beat. So in a rock beat, the ride cymbal might replace the hi-hat, and the hi-hat might play crotchets instead of quavers, so those are two common variations, but typically, the same fundamentals apply. There's some other specific features that are common in grunge drumming. So there's often a contrast between loud, powerful drumming in some sections and calmer drumming in others, and that ties in with this contrast in mood that we often have between really intense sections and suddenly much calmer sections of songs as well. And another common variation is the use of open hi-hats or crash cymbals to create a sense of loudness and energy. So often, we'll hear this really intense cymbal work on open hi-hats and crash cymbals that create this energy and really add to the energy and sort of anger of the music. Now we're gonna listen to two clip sections from the same grunge song. As you're listening to them, try and identify the contrast between the drumming in those two sections. In particular, pay attention to the way that the cymbals are used and pay attention to what the kick, snare, and hi-hat are doing as well. So pause my video and have a listen. So hopefully you heard there that in the first clip, we have repeated ride cymbal and with quite a simple kick and snare pattern of kick on one and three and a snare backbeat. In the second clip, the kick and snare are doing something similar, but the real contrast comes from the cymbal work, where we've got repeated open hi-hats and use of crash cymbals that add to this sense of energy in that section and create this real contrast. So well done if you picked out some of those differences there. So let's check your understanding then. Which two would you expect to hear in grunge song? A, backbeat, that's beat two and four on the snare, B, a contrast between loud, powerful drumming in some sections and calmer drumming in others, C, syncopated rhythms on the kick drum, or D, swing quavers on the hi-hats. I'll give you a few seconds now to come up with your two answers. Just a few seconds left. And let's look at our answers then. So you'd expect to hear a backbeat, that's beat two and four, on the snare, and we heard that on both of those clips we just listened to, and you would expect to hear a contrast between loud, powerful drumming in some sections and calmer drumming in others, and that really creates this contrast in energy that we often have between different sections of grunge. So well done if you've got both of those two. In what way might a grunge beat be different from a typical rock beat? A, the kick drum plays on every beat of the bar, B, the hi-hat pattern is played open rather than closed, or C, the backbeat is played on a crash cymbal. I'll give you a few seconds to come up with your answer. Okay, so the correct answer for this one is that a grunge beat might be different from a typical rock beat by having the hi-hat pattern played open rather than closed. That's quite a common thing, and again, in that clip we just listened to, we heard that open repeated hi-hat creating this really energetic, powerful drum beat in one section. So well done if you picked up on that one there. Time for task B now. We're gonna listen to this grunge song twice. I'd like you to identify three features of the drum beat that are typical of rock drumming in general. So that's features that we'd expect to hear in lots of different styles of rock music. And then I'd like one that is typical of grunge specifically. So think about those typical features of grunge drumming and try and identify one you can hear here and you can put it in the box on the right. So you can pause my video, have a go at this, listen to it twice, and see if you can complete that table. Good luck. Let's review the answers to that question then. So there are a few typical features of rock drumming. The first was that there's a strong pulse with kick on beat one and three. That's such a typical feature of rock drumming. There's a backbeat, that's beat two and four you might have said, on the snare drum, and there are hi-hats and cymbals playing a constant rhythm over the top. There's also, and we've not really talked about this in this lesson, but there's the use of fills at the end of sections, and that's really typical in rock music, and a lot of other styles really. So well done if you've got any of those typical rock features there. In terms of the typical features of grunge drumming that we might have picked up on here, the first one is that there's a really contrasting volume and mood between different sections, and this really emphasizes the different energy between the verse and the chorus that we have in this song. The second is that there's the repeated use of open hi-hats or crash cymbals in the high-energy section. So we have those repeated open cymbals that create this really energetic and contrasting mood. So well done if you've got either of those. It's quite a tricky task, that, but it really helps us ground ourselves in the typical features of both rock and grunge drumming. Now, we're gonna move on to looking at creating our own grunge drum beat. A project throughout this unit is gonna be to compose a piece of grunge, and we're gonna be starting with the rock beat. I'm gonna play three videos for you now. The first one we're gonna look at now is creating a rock beat. I'll play that for you now. To start off, we're gonna have a go at creating a simple rock beat on the drums. If you've created a drum beat on a DAW before, it'll be very similar to this drum beat. It's quite a simple drum beat, with backbeat on the snare, kick on one and three, and repeated quaver hi-hats. So let's find a suitable drum kick, and as we're going through grunge, we want a sort of rock-style drum kit, so one with quite heavy punchy sounds. One I've chosen that I quite like is this one, it's called Heavy on GarageBand, but you choose one that you like the sound of. Test out the sounds of the bass, that's the kick drum, the snare, and the hi-hats, and find one that you're happy with. Okay, so my first track I'm gonna record in is gonna be the kick drum, and I'm gonna record that on beat one and three. Let's make sure I've got my metronome on before I head back to the start, and let's record that in for one bar. (metronome ticking) (drum banging) And quantize that to make sure it's in time, as it's just crotchets. I'm gonna be quantizing to a quarter note. Next up, I'm gonna do my backbeat. So I'm gonna create another track, choose the same drum kit, and my backbeat on the snare is gonna be on beat two and beat four. Here we go. (metronome ticking) (drum banging) Quantize it to a crotchet again, and that's our kick and our snare done. And now, it's just a case of getting some hi-hats in there. So again, another track, and I'm gonna record some quavers on the closed hi-hat. So I need to find that. And then we're gonna record that in one bar. (upbeat drum music) as it's quavers, if I'm quantizing, I'll need to use an eighth note, then I can loop that. Let's say for now, just for four bars, updated bar five, and hear how it sounds. (upbeat drum music) That's my simple rock beat done. Now let's watch the second video, which looks at how we can create variation on this rock beat with the kick drum. I'll play it for you now. Now that I've created a simple rock beat, I'm gonna develop it by creating some variation in the kick drum part. At the moment, the kick is playing on beat one and three, and that's really effective because it creates a really strong sense of pulse and makes the beat really clear. When I'm creating some variation in this kick drum part, I still want to keep that really strong sense of pulse. So I want to keep the kick drum definitely on beat one, and probably also on beat three so that there's still the really strong sense of pulse. So what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna delete the kick drum part that I've already created, I'm gonna loop the snare and the hi-hat parts, and I'm gonna try improvising some different patterns on the kick drum that still use beat one, but add in some other notes around, some more interesting rhythms to create a bit of interest and a bit of complexity, but I still need to emphasize beat one and possibly beat three as well. So let's have a go. So there's one and three, (upbeat drum music) I will try some variation. (upbeat drum music) (upbeat drum music continues) So in all those variations there, I was making sure I was still playing beat one and usually playing beat three as well, and then just adding in some different quaver rhythms on the kick, so I found one that I quite like, and now, I'm ready to record that in. So it's record in. Here we go. (upbeat drum music) I can loop it and I wanna quantize it as well. Now, this time, I've used some quavers, so I'm gonna be quantizing to an eighth note. Let's have a quick listen now at my rock beat with some variation in the kick drum. (upbeat drum music) And that's that step complete. The final video we'll look at now is how we create variation using open hi-hats. Let's have a look. Another step we can take to develop our drum beat is to use open hi-hats repeatedly. You might have used open hi-hats in combination with closed hi-hats before, but a common theme in rock drumming, and in grunge drumming in particular, is that we often get repeated hi-hats that are played open without any closed hi-hats. So I'll show you what that looks like. I'm gonna delete the quaver hi-hats I have so far, and then I'm gonna have a go finding the open hi-hat sound on my drum kit. It's normally quite close to the closed hi-hat. That's it there, I found it there. Now, what we quite often get is open hi-hats played either as repeated quavers or sometimes as repeated crotchets. I'll show you what both of those sound like, and then I'm gonna choose one that I think works best for my drum beat. So I'm gonna just loop this for now. So this would be repeated quavers on the open hi-hat, (upbeat drum music) repeated crotchets, (upbeat drum music) quavers, (upbeat drum music) crotchets. (upbeat drum music) Now, I don't know if you agree, but I certainly think that the repeated crotchets sound more effective. The repeated quavers on the open hi-hat is quite difficult to hear the different notes because the sound is sustained and they all sort of blur together, whereas with crotchets, you can really hear them separate and it creates a really nice, strong pulse and strong rhythm, so I'm gonna be doing that. I'm gonna do some repeated crotchets on my open hi-hats. I'm gonna record one bar and then again quantize and loop it. (upbeat drum music) Just make sure that one is right at the start, quantize them, they're crotchets, so I can do a quarter note, then loop it for four bars, and let's now hear how my developed rock beat sounds. (upbeat drum music) And that's a great start. See how you get on with it. Okay, let's check your understanding of grunge drum beats then. I'm gonna play you three clips now, and I want to know which of these drum beats would be the most suitable for grunge. Here is example A. (dramatic drum music) Now, time for example B. (heavy drum music) And finally, example C. (electronic drum music) So which of those do you think would be the most suitable drum beat for grunge? I'll give you a few seconds to decide. And the correct answer then would be example B, and that's because it has some of those really typical features of grunge drum beat. we can hear in this (heavy drum music) there are repeated open hi-hats, we've got a strong snare backbeat, it's a live drum kit as opposed to an electronic one, and it's got a really strong pulse driven by the kick drum on beat one and three as well. So well done if you identified that one there. It's time for task C then. So for this, you're gonna create your own grunge drum beat. Success criteria is there's a kick on beat one and three, a snare on beat two and four, that's our backbeat, repeated hi-hats, there's some variation with either added kicks or open hi-hats, it is one bar long, quantized and looped, and it uses an acoustic drum kit sound, suitable for rock instead of an electronic drum kit. So following the steps that I did in the videos, have a go at creating your own grunge drum beat. You can pause my video now. Let's move on to the final part of this task. You're gonna listen to this clip of a drum beat, and you're gonna have a think about what could this pupil do to improve their drum beat for grunge. So I'll play it for you now. Here we go. (dramatic drum music) I'm gonna play it for you for a second time. As I'm doing so, try and come up with one or two things that this student could do to improve their drum beat for grunge. Here we go. (dramatic drum music) So pause my video while you write your answer, and then unpause it and we'll go through the answer together. So the ways that this pupil could have improved that drum beat is A, to make a clearer pulse with the kick drum, perhaps by including beat three, or alternatively, they could have used more repeated open hi-hats, either crotchets or quavers, to create a clearer pulse and to add interest. At the moment, the hi-hats are playing on minutes, so that's on beat one and beat three, which means there's a lot of space in the drum beat. It doesn't feel like it's driving with such repeated rhythms that you tend to get in grunge. So well done if you picked up on either of those. That wasn't an easy question. Summarize our lesson then. Grunge is a style of heavy rock music featuring distorted guitar sounds and angry lyrics. Key musical features of it include the use of riffs, distorted guitars, and simple instrumentation. These are influences that are taken from punk rock and heavy metal, as well as from other styles. Drum beats in rock have a strong pulse and a snare backbeat. Grunge drum beats often contrast between sections, and they use open hi-hats or crash cymbals to create powerful effects. I hope you've enjoyed this lesson then, and feel inspired to build on our composition in future lessons as we learn more. That's a really interesting style of music. Thanks for taking part, and see you next lesson.