Let’s accent how awesome groove of the week #36 is:
Groove of the week #36 shows how you can take a simple groove, and spice it up using accents. Let’s get to accenting.
Get The Groove
The groove that we’re spicing up with accents is a simple two handed 16th note groove with a sparse bass drum pattern. Let’s check out the basic pattern first.
Hopefully you won’t have any problems with that groove. If you do, use a metronome, go slow, and, count. Don’t proceed until you can play this groove easily.
Now lets look at the accent pattern we’re going to apply to the groove. Here it is played on the snare drum:
Learn to play this accent pattern on the snare drum first. As always, go slow and count focus on getting two sound levels – one level for the accents and a softer level for the unaccented notes.
Once you can play this pattern easily, then we can try orchestrating it between the hi-hat and snare. The snare drum will naturally add another accent to the accent pattern. Hit the snare drum at the volume you would usually use when playing a back-beat.
To get the accents on the hi-hat, I use the shoulder of the stick on the edge of the hi-hat. For the unaccented notes I use the tip of the stick on the top of the hi-hat. Watch how my hands move to in the video to see this in action. Practice this movement until you can do it smoothly.
The final step in our groove is to bring in the bass drum. Here’s the full groove:
Take It Further
Once you have learnt the groove of the week, experiment with the bass drum pattern to create other grooves. Here’s 3 examples.
After experimenting with that accent pattern, try to find some accent patterns that you like the sound of. Here’s one more pattern for you to try, with two examples with the bass drum added.
I hope you’ve enjoyed groove of the week #36. If you’re in Singapore and you’d like a free trial drum lesson, send us a message on the contact us page.