Smells Like Teen Spirit drum pattern
A forceful grunge backbeat with hard 2-and-4, eighth-note hats, crash-like open-hat lifts, and a short bar-line tom turn. Press Play to hear it with a sampled drum kit at 117 BPM, change the tempo or swing, and follow every hit on the grid.
How to count the Smells Like Teen Spirit
Count it as: 1 & 2 & 3 & 4 & · two bars. The pattern is a 2-bar phrase in 4/4 (two-bar grunge chorus pocket).
The Smells Like Teen Spirit pattern, hit by hit
Each character is one step of the grid and each group is one beat. X is an accented hit, x a normal hit, o a quiet or ghost note and - a rest.
| Voice | Bar 1 | Bar 2 |
|---|---|---|
| Kick | X--x --x- X-x- --x- | X--x --x- X--x --x- |
| Snare | ---- X--- ---- X--- | ---- X--- ---- X--- |
| Ghost snare | ---o ---- ---o ---- | ---o ---- ---o ---- |
| Closed hat | x-o- x-o- x-o- x-o- | --o- x-o- --o- x-o- |
| Open hat | ---- ---- ---- ---- | X--- ---- X--- ---- |
| Pedal hat | ---- o--- ---- o--- | ---- o--- ---- o--- |
| High tom | ---- ---- ---- ---- | ---- ---- ---- ---x |
| Low tom | ---- ---- ---- ---- | ---- ---- ---- --x- |
Tempo and feel
Straight and aggressive without rushing. The backbeat is the event; the kick and tom only frame it. The default tempo is 117 BPM. Slow it down until every hit is controlled, then raise the tempo a few BPM at a time.
How to practise the Smells Like Teen Spirit
Play the chorus backbeat at half volume first. Add the open-hat lifts without widening the time. Learn the two-note tom turn as a pickup into beat 1.
Variations to try next
Keep closed hats for a verse cell. Remove the tom turn. Move the open hats to ride accents.
Where to hear this feel
Records in this family include Nirvana - Smells Like Teen Spirit, Dave Grohl - recorded drum architecture and 90s alternative-rock drum vocabulary. Reference-informed two-bar chorus study after Dave Grohl's drum architecture in Nirvana's "Smells Like Teen Spirit". The guitar wall and crash wash are not reproduced; the forceful backbeat, kick pickups, and bar-line fill are kept playable.