Stage 8
Signature performances: Grohl's greatest grooves
Perform whole signature tracks with the real dynamic contour.
WorkoutDave Grohl
Foo Fighters / Nirvana · The biggest backbeat in rock, played dead in the pocket.
The hardest material in Dave Grohl's system — late-path stages and the toughest song studies. Same underlying workouts as everywhere else, nothing duplicated.
Late-path stages
Stage 9
Challenge workouts: stamina and power
Build the endurance to hit this hard for a full set.
WorkoutStage 10
Mastery: the whole Grohl vocabulary
Combine backbeat power, one-handed speed and dynamic control freely.
WorkoutToughest song studies
Best of You
Foo Fighters · In Your Honor
Level 4
≈ 172 · 4/4
Prep with: Stage 1 — Foundations: the big backbeat
- Primary technique:
- Stamina and power
- Also trains:
- Dynamic build, Crash-driven fills
- Key groove:
- Full-throttle driving groove that barely lets up for four minutes.
- Signature fill:
- Big crash-anchored fills before each chorus and the final scream.
- Transition:
- Escalating fills leading to a maximum-energy outro.
- Listen for:
- How the energy keeps rising even in the final chorus repeats.
- Training:
- Trains stamina and power across a full high-energy arrangement.
- Challenge:
- Play the whole song at full energy with no dynamic drop-off by the last chorus.
- Verse: Driving groove, building tension.
- Chorus: Full-kit push.
- Bridge: Screamed vocal, huge dynamic peak.
- Outro: Repeated choruses at maximum intensity.
No One Knows
Queens of the Stone Age · Songs for the Deaf
Level 4
≈ 145 · 4/4
Prep with: Stage 1 — Foundations: the big backbeat
- Primary technique:
- Riff-locked groove
- Also trains:
- Odd accent placement, Heavy hitting
- Key groove:
- A tightly riff-locked groove that follows the guitar's syncopated accents exactly.
- Signature fill:
- Explosive tom fill matching the riff's stop-start phrasing.
- Transition:
- Groove drops out and re-enters exactly with the riff hits.
- Listen for:
- How precisely the kick and snare match the guitar riff's accents.
- Training:
- Trains riff-locked accent placement outside his usual straight-eighth vocabulary.
- Challenge:
- Lock every accent to the riff exactly, including the stop-start sections.
- Intro: Riff-locked groove establishes the syncopated feel.
- Verse: Tight groove following guitar accents.
- Chorus: Full-kit hits matching riff stabs.