Tailgate Smoker

Tailgate Smoker is a collaboration between Fat Matt Drums and Drumline Hits, and I am especially pleased with how it turned out. My ideas in this thing kept feeling stale the more I tried fleshing them out, but adding some fresh blood to the mix really did the trick.

Organized into seven movements and clocking in at a whopping 2’24’’, this piece will give your line lots to say and plenty to play to bring that heat on game day! Weaving between intricate licks and heavy grooves, this cadence offers enough to satisfy any fan’s hunger for beats, and the structure affords for easy adaptation to suit any performance venue. Whether a passage is simple or complex, challenging or repetitive, the faithful execution of dynamics by the ensemble will be crucial to the effectiveness of this music.

Sheet music is packaged as a PDF binder including a score, printable battery parts, and optional parts for 4-drum and 5-drum tonal bass lines (original arrangement is for 6 bass drums).

Immortal

Immortal is an HBCU-style street beat that consists of a series of buildups that each feature a single section of the line, punctuated by hits or little licks in the other sections, and building up to release into the next section’s “feature.” Many of these little features are then reprised as accompaniment to other sections’ features. The final buildup takes us into the full battery groove at letter E, which hits you with everything I want in a cadence: a backbeat, nothing but rimshots in the tenors, sizz/sucks in the cymbals, and an excessive number of stick flips for visual flair. As described, it could almost be a parody of the way I like to write cadences, but I think quite the opposite—this piece is a quintessential representation of how I try to compose. Very old-school and very modern at the same time, with extensive focus on both groove and traditional rudimental fare.

It is arranged for 7 basses, but it is also not very heavy on bass splits, so that could easily be adjusted-for by any college line interested in this composition. The difficulty level may be pushing the upper limit of what counts as a “blue square,” but I truly believe that the rudimental content is far more reasonably achievable by college musicians than anything in the “black diamond” category.

How It's Done

How It’s Done is a street beat that was originally written for a drumline with only snare, bass, and cymbals as the instrumentation. I have since added an optional tenor part, and you can compare the recordings with and without to see how the part complements the base arrangement.

It opens with a short bass drum cadence that includes a quote (top two basses in measure 3) from the classic SCV bass drum cadence that dates back at least as far as 1979. The main groove at rehearsal letter A does some sleight of hand, where the snare part of the first four bars of this phrase repeats, but offset by a quarter note, with the bass part slightly modified to prevent uncomfortable rhythmic clashes. A reprise of the bass cadence, colored by some different textures in the snare part, gives way to a segment adapted from a memorable lick from the 1999 and 2000 productions of Carolina Thunder (Independent World-Class WGI ensemble from North Carolina that was active for four seasons from 1998–2001, which produced a lot of the educators I learned from in my early drumming career). Measure 23, which is part of this larger lick, is itself a quote of the old SCV Lezginka lick.

For those unaccustomed to repeat terminology in drumline music: the music is performed from the top until the “D.S. al Coda” at the end of measure 26, at which point you go back to the symbol (rehearsal letter A) and play up to the “To Coda” marking at the end of measure 13, at which point you jump to the coda at measure 27 and play to the end.

Game Day Grabbers: 10 Stadium Grooves

Game Day Grabbers: Grooves Good-to-Go showcases ten stadium grooves that were created by re-imagining existing cadences and lot jams with an eye toward brevity and ease of use. While these arrangements would serve any collegiate drumline and almost any high school drumline—at any time of year—they were conceived with particular regard for the month of October in football season: a time when it might be nice to throw something fresh into the rotation of beats, but when you don’t have all the time in the world to rehearse new music.

Edit 6 Jan 2022: Fixed typo in the last measure of bass part of Wet Air both in book and individual score.

Pep Seven

Pep Seven is a cheer-type stadium groove that hops through different feels “in seven” while keeping the game day spirit driving forward! Although the vocabulary is very simple, the sizable demands for ensemble cohesion and strong sense of pulse make this piece a little more challenging than it appears to be, but the “cool” factor will more than make up for how much work you have to put into it. Dig this!

Big Game Hunters

Big Game Hunters is a groovy street beat that’s all about textures. Snares and tenors play splits as separate groups in a couple places, so watch out for that when reading the score (I tried to draw attention to it). Also, there is a lot of visual flair written into the snare part; it repeats, so just get the motions coordinated, and you’ll be golden.

I was inspired to write this piece after seeing a college line in Utah rocking it with no cymbals and whose tenors had multiple toys (Agogô bell AND wood block!), so I am providing the original arrangement in this style, the “Wasatch Front” arrangement.

But what about those big Southern drumlines with plenty of power and size, whose performers have plenty of fun in their eyes? Enter the “Tobacco Road” arrangement, scored for either 5 or 9 bass drums, tenors with only one toy (an Agogô bell), a couple of other subtle changes, and definitely yes cymbals!

EDIT 21 February 2023: Fixed some noteheads in bars 2-4 of the snare part

Powder Keg

Powder Keg is an explosive street beat full of motion, energy, and groove, with some tasty licks in between. The patterns should all feel quite good in the hands, and this piece, having a somewhat limited vocabulary, would likely suit any line willing to put in the work.

Robusto

Robusto creatively employs repetition and a fairly limited rudimental vocabulary to create many cool moments and grooves across the battery. Don’t get me wrong: there are many challenges here. However, many of these challenges are repeated so many times that a little bit of practice goes a long way for every performer. And for the most part, these challenges will be more mental (rhythms, dynamics, and ensemble cohesion) than physical (chops).

A college or high school line could enjoy this one while knocking it out of the park, although a high school instructor should be cognizant of the rhythmic challenges (particularly the syncopation in the bass line) and whether they fit into the wheelhouse of the performers who are earliest on their journeys as rudimental drummers.

Main Stage

Main Stage is a heartfelt homage to the heyday of Big Room house music at massive EDM festivals like the Electric Daisy Carnival in Las Vegas, EDC Chicago (RIP), and Ultra Music Festival in Miami. Simplicity commands immense power, and from 2013–2015, you could experience it in its purest form, louder than Hell, with top-shelf lighting and pyrotechnics, and a whole lot of energised people eager to eat it all up. With changing popular taste and the questionable future of big festivals in the United States, it is nice to look back fondly on a very special moment in time, exemplary of the zeitgeist and a generation coming of age.

From a more practical perspective, if you’re going to write a cadence whose main bass drum groove is just quarter notes, you should really only do it once, and you’d better knock it out of the park. So if anyone asks about that crazy beat your line is playing, just call it ID – ID.

Strut

Strut is just what the doctor ordered! A solid one-minute street beat that’s reasonably accessible and gets a lot of variety out of a few simple ideas. If a pattern is tricky, it will appear a few times, so that a little bit of woodshedding can go a long way with this piece. A college or high school line could have a lot of fun with this one.

As a bonus, I’m including a score that has parts for differently-sized bass drum lines, since not everybody rolls with 5 basses. If you’re looking for more stuff arranged for differently-sized bass lines, my offerings through Marching Monk and through Tapspace include extra parts for differently-sized bass lines (2–9 basses, and 4–9 basses, respectively).

Fox Hunt

Fox Hunt is a medium-level street beat that’s always in motion. A high school could rise to the challenges of this piece, and a college/university could play it really well without being bored. Lots of nice shaping in the tenors, with different textures used across the whole battery, creating interesting moments that either shatter or satisfy listener expectations. And, of course, it wouldn’t be a Fat Matt street beat without lots of power and excitement at the last rehearsal letter.

Blowdown Drum

Blowdown Drum is a swung-style stadium groove that can be looped as needed for some smooth jamming.

Cooling Tower

Cooling Tower is an upbeat stadium groove with lots of tasty layering and shaping in the upper battery and a simple walking bass line to keep things moving along.

Steam Engine

Steam Engine is a bombastic stands beat with two different tempi. It should evoke the image of a massive locomotive starting up, and if you work on your fivelets, everything should fit together perfectly!

Stop Breaking Down

Stop Breaking Down is a bass drum cadence with an optional full battery component, inspired by the Widespread Panic cover of that tune… particularly Dave Schools’s catchy bass line.

EDIT 21 February 2023: Fixed a typo in the flam taps in the tenor part of measure 16.

The X-Ray Climb

The X-Ray Climb is the result of playing around with MuseScore notation software for a couple of evenings, just to try it out. MuseScore is a free musical notation program that has a free extension for drumline notation and playback. It’s a pretty solid piece of software, and it’s absolutely amazing for the price! There were only a few things that I gave up on trying to figure out how to do (like adding my copyright notice, so I just did it in PowerPoint), and it was intuitive enough that I could write something new and original by just playing around with it. Like when you play around with a new musical instrument (like a bass or guitar), and there’s just something fun and interesting about it which helps to direct your ideas, leading to the creation of a new song… there was something about the experience that made this cadence what it is, and I am very pleased with the result. For comparison (and because I am especially proud of my VDL mixes), I’ve rendered the same composition with the VDLite sound library.

Givin' it All

Givin’ it All is a slammin’ Stadium Groove inspired by 7Horse’s “Meth Lab Zoso Sticker.” Give it some time to develop, and everyone is going to want to start moving!

Baby Legs

Baby Legs is a more experimental street beat written for the cool and comfortable tempo of 96 BPM. It blends inspiration from Cumbia and Drum & Bass styles to create some interesting feels that come together at the end for some heavy grooving. 

EDIT 21 February 2023: Fixed errata in Measure 2 that had the snares and tenors playing the wrong rhythm in beat 4.

Malignant Narcissism

Malignant Narcissism is a street beat based on the eponymous instrumental by RUSH. The notes should all be very physically achievable, but there are some moments that will be very demanding of ensemble cohesion. Don't hurt yourself! 

30 Under

30 Under is a street beat written at 90 BPM for a much more laid-back feel than the 120 BPM you're used to. I don't know who is prepared to march that slow, but if you are, these notes are for you!