What happens when you accidentally give your drum charts to the keyboardist? You end up with the Drum Beat Song. Click on the score to play/stop.
The Drum Beat Song is a standard 4/4 Rock Beat at 120 bpm set to music. Using drum notation, the kick drum translates to a low D, while the snare drum is a Middle C, and the hi-hat up top is a high G. Together, they form an incomplete D7(sus4). Drag over the chord below. Use the drum beat beat above and the drum beat chord below for an ultimate drum beat jam. Why not tap along at home using the membranophones on your own body?
How and when did the Drum Beat Song arise? Well, some centuries ago, a pianist in an orchestra accidentally got the timpani parts, and the theater was treated to a fantastic musical joke. Later on, there was this Jazz band that mixed up its score sheets, and again the pianist got the drum parts, now swinging ting ting ting-ting like Jazz cymbals, and dropping dominant seventh bombs on the bass. Then after that, there was an electronic musician with a live MIDI trigger that he forgot to set to the drum channel; the audience laughed their faces off when they heard sine waves blooping a familiar beat.
I first came across the Drum Beat Song using Midisoft 4.0—the greatest program ever made in 1994. If you forgot to set your drum channels properly, this beat, or another beat just like it, would hilariously play on the default piano, sometimes creating for a novel sound of unsuspecting beauty. Is this merely a conceptual art excercise? Or can the Drum Beat Song find its way into real music someday?
Have you encountered the Drum Beat Song before? Please share your stories in the comments section.
