It’s time to get funky! Here’s Groove of the Week #6:

I first remember hearing this kind of funky, syncopated two bar pattern in the chorus of the Billy Joel song Easy Money from the Innocent Man Album. I instantly fell in love with the groove and it became one of my favourite songs to drum to. You’ll also hear this kind of pattern throughout funk music; Cold Sweat by James Brown is another great example of this kind of beat.

Similar to Groove of the week #5, this is a two bar pattern and presents the same challenges. You need to be able to perform the two bar pattern consistently and you need to be able to add drum fills to it.

To work on adding drum fills, use a 4 bar pattern like this:

Try the groove with a variety of fills – such as the ones suggested in groove of the week #5, any of our fill of the week suggestions or the fills below. The fills for groove of the week 5 all started on the beat, all of these fills start and the “&”. You want to be comfortable starting fills both on and off the beat.

Once you are comfortable playing groove #6 and adding fills to it, try keeping the snare drum pattern the same, but changing the 8th note bass drums. Here’s some examples:

Another way to extend your practice with this groove (and any 2 bar pattern) is to reverse the order of the bars – try these:

The last 2 examples of the reversed groove may prove tricky as there is no bass drum on beat one of the first bar. This might throw you off, but it is something you want to be able to do. When playing beats with no bass drum on beat one it is common to play the bass drum on beat one of the first bar when you start the groove and after drum fills. Here’s an example using the 4th pattern from above:

Have fun with groove of the week 6! If you’re in Singapore and you’d like a free trial drum lesson, send us a message on the contact us page.