As part of my IDS project, I’m creating a complete song to display all the techniques I have learned. My song generally fits into the metalcore genre, and that means aside from hard distorted guitars and fast riffing, one of the key features of this genre is the drums.

This is the second post in a series of 2 where I will go through the drum part of ‘Machine Hell’ and the process of composing said parts.

In the first post, we left off talking about the verse drums. We now come up on the pre-chorus, a section whose main purpose to build suspension. My pre-chorus was composed of short, spaced out diminished chords, and so I needed a drum part to compliment that energy. I settled on a 16th-note bass pattern that’s almost evocative of snare rolls, and would help build up the piece.

That was relatively simple, but now it’s time for the chorus. I’ve listened to many metalcore songs both before and as part of this project, and one thing that’s very recognizable is that the chorus drums(and harmonies for that matter) don’t tend to have much variation. It was a tough decision choosing between whether I wanted to do something different, or have it actually recognizable for its genre, and I decided to go with the second option. Unfortunately, there aren’t that many resources on the ‘chorus beat’ compared to something like the skank or blast beat, so I just had to figure it out by ear. And I think I did alright.

The song later sees a repeat of the verse, pre-chorus, and chorus, followed by a bridge, which does not have a drum part aside from the same hits at the beginning of the intro. This is then followed by the chorus once again. And that is the entire drum part for Machine Hell.

(This post is part of a series of entries into my Learning Journey for my IDS project in Music Composition.)

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