Here’s another track from the Trinity Rock & Pop Grade 1 Syllabus and one of my favourite songs: Another One Bites The Dust by Queen.

As with all the songs on the Trinity Rock & Pop grade 1 syllabus, this is a shortened version of the song. We get the intro, a verse, a chorus and then the outro. However in this short space of time we get more drum fills than there are in the original version of the song!

If you listen to Queen playing this song live, you will hear drummer Roger Taylor adding more drum fills to bring the track to life a little more on stage. In the studio, songwriter & bassist, John Deacon, wanted the song to be focused more on the groove & had Roger Taylor just play a bar of the groove and then looped it around to achieve drum machine like precision. The one machine gun like drum fill was then added later.

This version of the song requires a mix of both the studio and live performance. You want to focus on getting a very consistent groove during the intro and verse and then the fills in the chorus help to bring the song to life a little more.

The main problem with this song is the first drum fill at the end of the verse. In the original song, this fill starts on the ‘ah’ of 2 – after the singing has stopped. In this version, the fill starts on beat 1. If you are used to the original song, this feels very strange. Counting bars during the verse, ignoring your instincts and just starting the fill on beat 1 of the 8th bar will help to get this fill in the right place. It takes a few run-throughs for this to start to feel normal.

The 2018 version of the Trinity Grade 1 Rock & Pop book is great to work through if you’re still in the early stages of your drumming journey. You don’t have to take the exam to benefit from the book. The songs are great to work on & fun to play and will help to improve your drumming. In Singapore you can find the book at Robert Piano – Paragon Shopping Centre (and probably their other outlets). It’s also available from Amazon if you’re happy to pay the shipping!

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