The pattern
120 BPM · 4/4 · 32 step
| Instrument | Beat 1 | Step 2 | Step 3 | Step 4 | Beat 2 | Step 6 | Step 7 | Step 8 | Beat 3 | Step 10 | Step 11 | Step 12 | Beat 4 | Step 14 | Step 15 | Step 16 | Beat 5 | Step 18 | Step 19 | Step 20 | Beat 6 | Step 22 | Step 23 | Step 24 | Beat 7 | Step 26 | Step 27 | Step 28 | Beat 8 | Step 30 | Step 31 | Step 32 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Kick | hit | rest | rest | rest | rest | rest | rest | rest | hit | rest | rest | rest | rest | rest | rest | rest | hit | rest | rest | rest | rest | rest | rest | rest | hit | rest | rest | rest | rest | rest | rest | rest |
| Snare | rest | rest | rest | rest | rest | rest | rest | rest | rest | rest | rest | rest | rest | rest | rest | rest | rest | rest | rest | rest | rest | rest | rest | rest | rest | rest | rest | rest | hit | hit | hit | hit |
| Crash | rest | rest | rest | rest | rest | rest | rest | rest | rest | rest | rest | rest | rest | rest | rest | rest | hit | rest | rest | rest | hit | rest | rest | rest | hit | rest | rest | rest | hit | rest | rest | rest |
| High tom | rest | rest | rest | rest | hit | rest | rest | rest | rest | rest | rest | rest | hit | rest | rest | rest | rest | rest | rest | rest | hit | rest | rest | rest | rest | rest | rest | rest | hit | rest | rest | rest |
| Low tom | hit | rest | hit | rest | hit | rest | hit | rest | hit | rest | hit | rest | hit | rest | hit | rest | hit | rest | hit | rest | hit | rest | hit | rest | hit | rest | hit | rest | hit | rest | hit | rest |
How to play it and where it comes from
The typical post-rock “climb” (Explosions in the Sky, Mogwai, Godspeed You! Black Emperor): the low tom beats the eighths like a heartbeat, the high tom accents 2 and 4 in place of the snare, the kick stays on sparse quarter notes; in the second bar the crashes come in on the quarter notes along with a final roll that opens the climax. It repeats with a velocity crescendo (from 60 to 127) for 16–32 bars; at the climax it moves to the full rock beat with open crash/ride in eighths. Variants: mallets only on the cymbals in the pianissimo, half time with snare on 3, sixteenth-note tom doubling in the last 4 bars.