Keep It Healthy - Warpaint | Drum Transcription Notes
Page 1 preview
This transcription was originally published on 12/2/21. It was updated on 3/3/21 to include a drum legend and to improve the layout.
I don’t know why it’s taken me so long to get round to transcribing a Warpaint song as I’m a big fan of the band and Stella Mozgawa’s drumming!
The drumming in this song isn’t for the faint hearted. As you’ll notice from the preview above, there are some weird time signature transitions! The instrumental riff follows a 5/4, 6/4, 5/4, 5/4 pattern. You’ll want to practice playing this section very slowly whilst counting. Otherwise you can easily get lost and miss something out.
Some other things to watch out for:
Stella Mozgawa likes an accented hi-hat part (see intro and verses). If you’re used to playing all of your hi-hats at the same volume this is worth practicing. It can transform your sound. It’s a simple idea but quite hard to execute consistently.
The Middle 8 feature some intricate linear grooves. Take your time with each bar, start slow and gradually increase the speed. You’ll notice throughout that on beat 4 I’ve transcribed a stepped hi-hat (playing the hi-hat with your foot) and a normal hi-hat (played with your stick) at the same time. If you listen carefully to the recording you can hear the slightly different hi-hat sound this produces. Watch this video if you’re not sure what I mean! Leaving out the stepped hi-hat will make this section quite a bit easier to play, so leave it out if you find it too difficult. You can always add it back in later.
The grooves in bars 73-82 look incredibly complicated but they’re actually just variations of the grooves in bars 58-72 with ghost notes played on the “e”s and “a”s. Just take it slow!
The “z” on the beam of the ghost notes at the end of bar 110 and 114 means to buzz those notes. I imagine there’s a lot more of this throughout the track but those two stood out to me. Use your own judgement when it comes to playing the other ones!
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