Seven Nation Army is an iconic song by the band White Stripes released in 2003.
Let us show you how to play the famous White Stripes hit on drums.
Seven Nation Army : anatomy of a hit
First, let's have a look at Seven Nation Army's structure.
The title of the White Stripes has the particularity of being relatively simple to play, whether it's the drums or the guitar part.
After a few hours of practice, you'll be able to play Seven Nation Army perfectly, even if you' re a beginner!
The music lasts 3'51 min, with a tempo of 123 bpm.
- The drums start with bass drum hits directly on the bar for 30 seconds
- The snare drum takes every other hit until the chorus, at 52 seconds
- During the pre-chorus, the bass drum and crash set the break on three bars, to finally place the chorus pattern
- The chorus is executed with a simple fill: on the same basis as the second part of the verse, with much more energy, followed by a small break in the middle of the chorus, and ends with the bass drum alone on the beat.
For the rest of the song, just repeat the process, until the end of the music.
Learn Seven Nation Army with WeGroove
Seven Nation Army is of course present in your WeGroove application.
As a reminder, in Challenge mode, you have three levels for each song: Easy, Medium and Hard.
So WeGroove is the perfect tool for learning Seven Nation Army on the drums!
Setup
For this lesson, we connected a Roland TD6 electronic drum kit to the WeGroove app via an iRig 2.
If you want more information on this setup, feel free to check out our tutorial on how to connect an electronic drum kit to WeGroove.
Level Easy
The first level of difficulty, the Easy mode, is mainly based on the bass drum and the snare drum.
These two elements form the backbone of the rhythm, which is repeated throughout the song.
Crashes come to emphasize the chorus beat.
Once the Easy level is mastered, a great part of the work is done.
Level Medium
With the Medium level, a new element appears in the rhythm of the song: the floor tom.
The floor tom is played at the same time as the bass drum on the verse.
You can also notice that the cymbals become more present on the chorus, making an ideal transition to the Hard level.
Level Hard
The Hard level is extremely close to the real Seven Nation Army drum part.
The toms are now on every beat, in unison with the bass drum.
The same goes for the cymbals, much more present, as in the original song.
In conclusion
Seven Nation Army is a rather simple and effective song.
So it's ideal if you want to learn how to play drums.
You can download WeGroove for free on Android and iOS to practice on your smartphone or electronic drum set.
Keep on Drumming !