Start warming your hi-hats up because groove of the week #20 is gonna make them work!

Groove of the week #20 is a busy beat. The bass drum and snare drum are straightforward enough, but the hi-hat is all over the place. Let’s take a closer look and break it down.

Get The Groove

The main thing to focus on for this groove is the hand pattern. Once we get the hands correct, the rest of the groove should fall into place. Here’s the hand pattern played on the snare:

When playing the hand pattern, notice that the Right hand plays all of the 8th notes – 1 & 2 & 3 & 4 & – and the left hand fills in the notes around it. This is the most common way of playing this kind of pattern on the kit as it keeps the Right hand playing constant 8th notes which helps with the time keeping function.

Now lets move the pattern to the hi-hat and add in the open hi-hat on the and of 3 and the closing on beat 4.

When playing the above pattern, really pay attention to where you close the hi-hat; get a good solid closing on beat 4 with your left foot.

Our final step is to add in the bass and snare drum. Focus on keeping the hand pattern nice and smooth as you move from hi-hat to the snare. Pay attention to the timing of the last 3 notes and be sure to put each one in its proper place. Here’s the full groove:

Taking It Further

I think the most obvious thing to change when taking this groove further would be the bass drum pattern. Let’s keep the hands the same and play around with the bass drum just a little. Try these variations:

The first of our 3 variations has the bass drum on all 4 beats to give it more of a dance feel.

The second variation adds bass drums on the “&” of 2 and 4 of the first bar and on the & of 2 of the second bar. This bass drum pattern adds a lot of forward motion to the groove, makes it feel like you can’t wait to get to the next beat.

The final variation is the funkiest one. The additional bass drum on the “ah” of 1 and then playing the other bass drums on the “&” of 2 and “&” of 3 make for a funky groove.

The other thing you can change with this groove is the ending. Here are some ideas for changing the last 3 notes:

The first of our 3 variations puts the snare drum on beat four to create a more normal sounding beat and has two open hi-hats to add a bit of colour. You may want to play that final snare with your left hand and let the right hand just handle the open hi-hats.

The second variation just adds a snare drum on beat four. Again, this makes the groove sound a little more normal at the end.

The final variation adds an additional snare on the & of 3 and moves the open hi-hat to the “&” of 4, creating a different feel to the other 2 variations.

Try all the variations out and then come up with some of your own.

I hope you’ve enjoyed groove of the week #20. If you’re in Singapore and you’d like drum lessons, send us a message on the contact us page and we’ll arrange a free trial lesson for you.