Travis Barker’s creativity has led to some of the most unique drum beats and fills. In today’s lesson with Drumeo’s Aaron Edgar, you’ll learn the main beat from “Down” by Blink-182, the intro-pattern on “Stockholm Syndrome” by Blink-182, and a really cool pattern from “Tiny Voices” by Boxcar Racer.
At first this beat might sound a little daunting with it’s 16th note hi hat pattern and 32nd note ghost hits on the snare, but it’s not actually that hard once you break it down! Let’s strip back the 16th and 32nd notes to start off and just learn the meat of the groove. Start at a nice, slow tempo.
Once you’re comfortable with that, let’s add in the accented 16th notes on the hi hat.
To finish off with the 32nd note off-beats, we’re just going to be playing a single stroke roll between our hi hats and snare drum on count four. It’s a lot easier than it looks! The tempo of the song is 94 BPM, but we recommend starting at 60 BPM and working your way up.
This next groove is loaded with a bunch of off-beat shots that give it the feeling that it’s coming in from the middle of nowhere. At the core of this pattern, we have a really simple beat between the kick and snare drum.
The very first kick drum with brackets around it means we don’t play that note the first time around – meaning the groove actually begins on the “&” of one. The other two accents appear on the “&” of three and “&” of four as flams on the snare and toms (respectively). The album tempo for this beat is 174 BPM.
The final groove that we’re going to look at focuses on playing off-beat 8th notes on the ride cymbal while holding the time together on the hi hats. This means we’ll be going back and forth between the left foot and right hand in 8th notes. The groove actually takes up a full four bars with the first and third being identical, while the second and fourth have slight variations.
The second bar simply changes the kick drum on count four to a snare drum.
The final variation in bar four is the only place where we’ll be adding in a 16th note in addition to a couple other changes. Notice how the kick drum is removed from count one so we’ll just be playing the hi hat by itself. The album tempo for this groove is 154 BPM.
Drumeo Team - We're professional, award-winning drummers and drum teachers, coaches, recording artists, and content specialists who are passionate about drums and helping drummers around the world. This post was written and/or edited by Sam Landa, Brandon Toews, Jared Falk, Dave Atkinson, or another pro on our team (which has a combined 1000+ years of drumming experience). Are you looking for inspiration, education, and support to take your playing to the next level? Join the Drumeo community today!
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