"Dear Mr. Wilson, I recently came across a small bit of electronic music history that

I found interesting. Apparently a group called The Winstons have a song that is one of the

most sampled in the history of modern music. The song is 'Amen Brother,' and midway through

the song there is a drum solo that has earned the song it's reputation. In this solo the

drummer introduces a 'break' in the natural rythm [sic] of the song, which has caused

this drum solo to earn it's own title: The Amen Break.

My challenge to you: Compose a piece that incorporates a breakbeat."

Okay Zac, you're on.

Thanks man. Back to the couch.

The challenge made reference to the "Amen Break," and I'll just say that if you don't

know what that's all about then it's worth your time to take a look at the story behind

that. There's a link down below to a really interesting video on that topic, so take a

look.

The beat that I sampled for this track is played by drummer Kurt Zemlicka and it comes

from the beginning of a song called "The Chase Scene" from a Wisconsin-based indie rock band

called Batavia, used here by permission. That sounds like this.

Kurt recently released a new album called "Beautiful Noises," available at Bandcamp.com

under the name Smokestacks & Robots (Robots) Robots, along with longtime bandmate Ricky

Spenner. Again, there's more on that down in the description down below. Thanks to them

for the use of this drum sample.

Now I took that and tore it apart to get at the individual drum sounds that I needed to

patch together my own drum loop. I pulled out a kick, snare, and a few cymbals. These

then got filtered and retuned both higher and lower to give me some extra options. I

turned that into this loop, which when combined with the original, which again sounds like

this, now becomes this.

I'll leave you with a stem from my string section. Until next time, bye.