It’s time to dust off those paradiddles – regular and inverted – and play groove of the week #25.

Groove of the week #25 features 16th note paradiddles in the first half and 16th note inverted paradiddles in the second half. Throw in some hi-hat barks and you have a pretty challenging groove to play! To hear this kind of groove in action check out Steve Gadd or David Garibaldi – both are masters of this kind of groove.

Get The Groove

The best place to start for this groove is with the sticking pattern.

Our sticking pattern consists of two regular paradiddles – RLRR LRLL – and then two inverted paradiddles RLLR LRRL. When practicing this on the snare drum, play the unaccented notes really soft and the accents (on 2 & 4) really loud. This will help to create the contrast we’re looking for between the ghost notes and the back beat and it’ll help the hi-hat and the ghost notes to blend together.

Our next step is to play this pattern between the hi-hat and snare and try to get the dynamics sounding right.

Focus on getting the hi-hat and the ghost notes (the smaller snare notes) to blend together and accent beats 2 & 4 by performing a rim-shot.

Now lets add the hi-hat barks. These are performed by opening the hi-hat and then closing it on the next 16th note. This requires good control of your left foot. Let’s add them in.

Strive to get all of your hi-hat barks sounding the same. Really focus on closing the hi-hat together with the snare drum on the next 16th note. Play this very slowly and deliberately – 40bpm is a good place to start. Accuracy first, speed later. Don’t forget your snare dynamics.

The final step is to add the bass drum. The bass occurs every time we open the hi-hat.

Taking It Further

The easiest way to change this groove up is to move the right hand to the ride cymbal, Rather playing hi-hat barks, play the bell of the ride cymbal instead.

Splitting the left hand between snare and hi-hat while the right hand plays the ride cymbal also provides a fun variation.

The other fun thing to do with this groove is switch beats 1& 2 with beats 3 & 4 so you get all of the open hi-hats at the start of the groove.

I hope you’ve enjoyed groove of the week #25 – it’s a tough one so take it slow. If you’re in Singapore and would like a free trial drum lesson, send us a message on the contact us page.