AC/DC - Highway to Hell - Drum Cover

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Nearly the perfect beginner drum song. See description below for playing notes. I originally did this cover in 2016, but YouTube has (twice) removed it due to copyright on the original sound recording. So I played all the instruments myself to get around that bloc. Sorry, I'm a drummer not a guitarist :-)

I recorded the instruments in standard tuning (A440) since I didn't want to mess about with the slight detune that AC/DC tends to use. As such, if my crappy guitar playing isn't too much of a distraction, you can also play along with it using standard tuning for practice or something. And, if you can sing that high, it can be a karaoke version too!

Original notes from way back when below:

So, I feel like I’m returning to my roots with this drum cover. The first cover video of mine that ever got significant numbers of views was a pretty crappy cover of AC/DC’s Back in Black that I did years ago after having been playing drums for 24 days. It was not good at all, but did seem to resonate with others who were just starting out playing drums as I was at the time.

AC/DC remains one of the better bands, in my opinion, to play drums to if you are just starting out. There’s nothing particularly hard about any of their songs, as far as I can tell, and Highway to Hell is no exception. Basically four-on-the-floor drumming all through, with just a few flourishes, and a fair amount of things you can hit hard (read: Fun!). Good old Phil Rudd, the human metronome. Well, actually he’s not the perfect metronome (close….), as the BPM of this song does wander around a wee little bit, but that just helped me feel better about not being perfectly in time in a few places :-)

I think I’m playing this really close to the studio original (comments welcome on that subject). Live, Rudd sometimes plays it even simpler, doing away with some of the double kicks, so that’s an option for you. It’s not entirely clear to me if the double kick is everywhere I play it in the studio version. I have a feeling some places he just uses one, but it was a bit hard for me to pick out, and I didn’t care enough to go through it note by note, so I just stuck with the same basic pattern all the way.

One place I am not totally satisfied is hi hats. First, my camera angle is a bit off, so it’s hard to see what my left foot is doing. Sorry about that. Hopefully you can see the top of the HH going up and down, and the exaggerated manner in which I hit the open hi-hats in the second verse, which is cool to play. Second, this song made me realize the limitations of an electronic hi hat more than usual. Since I can’t really see what the HH is doing since it doesn’t open, I had a lot of trouble getting the openness of the HH right. During the verses, Rudd is playing it a little looser than my kit does, and there was no way I was going to be able to hold the HH open just a tiny bit with consistency. During the choruses, he seems to have it half open, but again, that was hard for me to do consistently, since I had no visual cue, so I have it a bit more open than he does, I’m pretty sure. Note to self: Get an acoustic drum kit one day.

Anyway, hope this helps some beginner drummer out there learn a fun song. Youtube videos are just a great resource for learning songs, and they basically taught me to play, so I hope this is of use to someone just starting out!

The set is a Roland TD-30, and the kit is one I put together for Bruno Mars, curiously, but I liked the pop of the snare, so I used it here too.

Sound is recorded from the drums by USB to, and mixed on, Sonar X3, overlaying the drums on the original, with the high low ends of the original song EQed down to muffle some of the drums (mainly kick and hi-hat/cymbals) so you can hear my drums better. Video is recorded on a Sony HDR-CX240E Handycam, and added to the music with Sony Vegas, which was well worth the 50 bucks.

Fair use notice: The original song remains the property of the copyright holder. This video is provided for non-profit educational and learning purposes, to allow beginning drummers to compare progress and learn to play stuff, and to demonstrate my ability (or lack thereof) only. And, perhaps, if I sucked badly enough, as a parody too (Just kidding copyright people. that last point was a joke.) More officially: "Copyright Disclaimer Under Section 107 of the Copyright Act 1976, allowance is made for "fair use" for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, and research. Fair use is a use permitted by copyright statute that might otherwise be infringing. Non-profit, educational or personal use tips the balance in favor of fair use."

Tags: easy drum songs, easy drum song, easy drum cover, easy drum covers, easy drum songs for beginners, easy drum cover, ACDC, AC/DC, AC DC