Exit Stage Right  - Tribute to Rush

I believe the reason that Neil Peart's drumming is so revered is less about his technical mastery and more to do with his composition of drum parts. There are plenty of professional drummers who can play with amazingly fast and accurate technique. But Neil has set himself above the rest by dreaming up with some of the most memorable fills and beats in the history of rock music. His drum parts are truly musical. You can tell that he sits in a room with each song for days or weeks composing and refining the perfect part for the music that Alex and Geddy write.

One of the signature elements of Neil’s drum compositions (and of Rush’s song structures in general) is a progression within each song from simple to complex –  a constant building of intensity. As a songwriting device this is a classic way to keep a song interesting and seems to be a natural momentum in great music. A song should go somewhere. A guitar solo should go somewhere – take the famous La Villa Strangiato guitar solo as the quintessential example of that. And in Neil’s vision, drum fills and beats should always go somewhere.

To this end, in many Rush songs Neil will at some point play variations of the same fills in the same places in verses and chorus. The first verse or chorus will have a simple fill. The next time the section of the song comes around, he will play a similar version of the same fill but with more complexity or intensity added. To make this shift, he will do things such as injecting more cymbal crashes, replacing snare hits with tom hits, and generally adding more and faster notes. But he will retain some of the original character of the fill. He will also do this with his beats within a song – creating beat variations later in the song which generally have added kick drum notes or busier ride patterns.

I scanned in a few examples of this from the drum charts I scrawled out while learning songs for ESR. Instead of writing out a song in linear fashion, I would go section by section so I could see how the parts were related as the section recurred through the song.

There are some good examples in the section of Red Barchetta with the lyrics “Jump to the ground as the turbo slows…” the first time and “Ride like the wind straining the limits of machine and man…” the second time later in the song (Neil is playing a driving beat with quarter notes on a loose hi-hat during the section.)

Here I’ve written out the 3 fills in the section for the first time on the top line and second time in the song on the bottom line. Fill #1 has a crash and snare on beat 4. The second time through he starts the fill the same way but moves the kick drum and adds and extra kick beat after the crash. In fill #3 he plays a triplet pattern between the snare and kick drum in the exact same way both times. But the first time he uses an open high hat on the snare, while the second time it’s a crash cymbal, building the intensity. (Interestingly this guitar riff is also played after the guitar solo but it’s barely recognizable because Neil plays an entirely different beat over it with quarter notes on the snare.)

A similar thing happens in the instrumental section of Red Barchetta that occurs right before the previously discussed segment. Neil is playing a rock beat with eighths on the ride cymbal. The second time through, he adds intensity by hitting crashes on all of the snare back beats. In addition the fills get busier the second time as shown here.

For fill #1 he does a similar rhythm both times but uses quick hi-hats the first time and cymbal crashes the second. He also ends fill #1 with a tom run the second time where he kept it simple the first time around. Fill #2 is a basic eighth note pattern with flams on the snare drum the first time, but the second time Neil spices things up with a burst of 16th notes alternating between the snare and kick.

Finally here is a interesting segment from Tom Sawyer where Neil is playing eighth notes on an open high hat (Geddy is singing “the world is the world is…”). He plays the exact same beat pattern both times but adds a few extra kick drum beats here and there the second time through, which I circled. This increases the funkiness of the section but still retains the original theme.

I didn’t bother writing out the whole beat the second time, just the differences. When trying to memorize Rush drum parts, it’s important to find patterns that repeat so as to keep your head from exploding from information overload!

There are countless examples of this same thing happening in Rush songs once you start to watch for it. The song Freewill is another great example to listen to.

When you’re playing drums on your own songs (or covers) you can keep this building concept in mind. Don’t start out a song with your flashiest, fastest fill in the first verse. Play simple, restrained fills early and save the fireworks for later in the tune. And experiment with theme and variation on your fills and beats, bringing back ideas with small changes that up the ante a little higher each time.

PG