This is a journey into groove of the week #27…

Have you heard this groove before? It’s more than likely, it’s been used in countless songs. The original groove was sampled from Ashley’s Roachclip by the Soul Searchers and has been used as the basis for many hip-hop songs. You might have heard in Paid In Full by Erik B. & Rakim, Unbelievable by EMF, or maybe on Set Adrift On Memory Bliss by P.M. Dawn or many other songs. Let’s check it out.

Get The Groove

The challenge with this groove is getting the bass drum pattern full aligned with the 16th note hi-hat. Lets look at the basic hi-hat and bass drum pattern.

Play this pattern slowly and carefully. Record yourself playing it at 40-50bpm. Can you get the bass drum to line up perfectly with your hi-hats every time? Pay special attention to the bass drum notes that are played together with the left hand, those often cause problems. Go as slow as you need to get it accurate and then gradually speed it up.

Let’s add in the snare drum next.

Move smoothly from the hi-hat to the snare drum with your right hand, try not to accent the hi-hat when you move your hand back and forth to & from the snare drum. Keep your hi-hats sounding even.

The last step is to add in the open hi-hats on the “&” of 3 and the “&” of 4. Make sure you close the hi-hat accurately with the snare drum on beat 4 and with the bass drum on beat 1.

Taking It Further

If you listen closely to the original song that the beat was sampled, you’ll that the 2nd open hi-hat actually closes on the “ah” of 4. The check out the original groove that was sampled, click here. I’ve cued it up to the right spot for you.

So if you’d like to play this iconic groove perfectly correctly, then amend it to this:

To take our groove further, lets change up the hi-hat pattern.

Our first variation is just straight forward 8th notes on the hi-hat with the right hand. This should be fairly easy to play.

Our second variation re-introduces the 16th note “ah”. Note that the right hand is playing the hi-hat and snare drum again now. This groove might provide more challenge.

Our final variation plays 16th notes on the “e” of each beat. Again the right hand moves between hi-hat and snare.

Which variation to you prefer? Maybe you’d like to stick to the original? It’s always good to have options to give a groove a slightly different feel.

I hope you’ve enjoyed groove of the week #27. If you’re in Singapore and you’d like a free trial lesson, send us a message on the contact us page.