Learn to play Can't Stop by Red Hot Chili Peppers
Featuring your favorite songs, Melodics creates bite-sized lessons that level up your skills on the drums.
Follow our step by step breakdown of Can't Stop to listen to every part and learn how to play it yourself. Want to take your skills even further? Download the Melodics app where you can access hundreds of lessons, track every hit and measure your improvement.

Biography
Red Hot Chili Peppers is a legendary funk rock band with an illustrious career spanning several decades. "Can't Stop" highlights Chad Smith's drumming prowess with its energetic and funky rhythm, capturing the essence of RHCP's distinctive style. The drummer's tight and dynamic playing is an integral part of the band's success and widespread appeal.
Intro
Start with a buildup on the snare, using alternating hands, and increasing the dynamic level across 8 bars.
Verse
After a 4 bar guitar riff break, move into the main verse groove. Watch for the open hi-hat variation in the middle of this section, and play a fill around the toms to lead into the chorus.
Chorus
Move to the open hi-hat for the chorus, and play crashes on beats 1 and 2-& in every bar. There is another fill around the toms halfway through this section.
Bridge
Strip back to a basic groove for the bridge, and finish this section on the open hi-hat with a fill moving from snare to hi tom.
Outro
Play a big 1/16 note snare fill to lead back into the verse groove. Watch for the fills, and ride out til the end.
Perform the track
Now combine the sections to play the whole arrangement.
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FAQs
- Red Hot Chilli Pepper's Can't Stop is a great song for intermediate and advanced drummers to play. Download Melodics to break down the song and play other lessons and songs for all skill levels.
- Strong and consistent use of ghost notes and dynamics to give the groove its characteristic feel, skill in incorporating improvisation and fills that complement the song's funky vibe, ability to keep the energy high and maintain the song's fast-paced tempo.
- Can't Stop is in 91bpm.
- Can't Stop is in 4/4 time signature.
- Can't Stop is in A major.
You can navigate to where Songs are in Melodics via the [Explore] >[Songs] section of the app.
Anyone with Melodics and a MIDI drums, keys or pads instrument can browse and audio preview any song in the catalog for free. Currently, you must have a subscription for a Melodics Songs plan in order to access the learning and playing component of Songs lesson content.
- Melodics subscribers prior to our September 1st 2022 launch have a free upgrade to the Songs tier from your Standard plan (thanks for believing in us!). Missed the memo? Get in touch.
- For Standard Tier subscribers (post September 1st 2022) and Melodics free users: Check out Melodics’ plans to upgrade to Songs, visit melodics.com/plans
The high caliber to which our music team produce our renditions for each song and try to capture the original sound and spirit behind the music and artists is unparalleled in the world of music-learning apps.
It’s really important when you’re learning popular music that you get a proper chance to focus without distraction — that means no bad renditions, dinky instruments or shoddy vocal attempts allowed!
With Melodics, we want your experience of playing your favorite songs to feel authentic — like you’re sitting in with the band itself
Melodics launched Songs on September 1st, 2022 with 59 songs in the catalog. Across keys, pads and drums instruments, with multiple levels of difficulty for each song, that’s over 200 distinct lessons for songs to play, plus 1500+ lessons, exercises, courses and a Guided Path to get your skills up to speed!
We always have more Songs in production, and we’ll be doing more Song bundle drops regularly so the catalog grows and stays fresh.
We love to hear what the people want. The request line is always open! Drop us a line or get involved with the Melodics Facebook Community.
Songs are only available to Premium plan subscribers. As a free user you can preview songs and hear how they sound by hitting the lesson audio preview. If you’d like an idea of how learning songs with Melodics can benefit your broader musical journey, check out our article on navigating your learning journey.