Semi-Charmed Life – Third Eye Blind – Song Breakdown

As with many pop songs, there is a basic drum track, and added percussion/samples in this song. I did the basic drum part, and added a few other things I could hear. There is major snare work with ghost notes and drags, which are hidden back there behind the rest of the instruments, so those can be simplified if need be (and sometimes drags etc are hinted at with added percussion, which I went ahead and made drags etc). Also, there are a lot of shaker/hi-hat type tracks, and I added some step hi-hat in the ride sections, which don’t necessarily have to be there if difficult.

In bars 28 & 52, there are a lot of ghost notes, but in this case it’s where drum samples are playing, which are less impactful than the normal beat. So if no drum triggers are present, you can just play those drums a little less loud.

In general, there is a subtle shuffle feel on the 16th notes which I indicated. There a also times where there is little to no shuffle, on tom fills etc, so it’s mainly a feel thing.