Groove of the week #43 is brought to you courtesy of Matt Sorum.

This groove is taken from the song Double Talkin’ Jive Guns N’ Roses. Matt Sorum uses his bass drum and floor tom to create this powerful low end groove that drives the song along. Let’s check it out.

Get The Groove

The base for this groove is provided by the 16th note pattern between floor tom and bass drum. Let’s start by checking it out:

The floor tom is playing eighth notes and the floor tom fills in the 16ths in between. This looks fairly easy to do, but I suggest you try it and record yourself doing so. Are you getting evenly spaced 16ths? Also, how hard are you hitting that floor tom?

To recreate Matt Sorum’s groove, the bass drum needs to be more prominent than the floor tom. Go have have a listen to the song, tell me which one you hear the most. In a situation where the kit is miked up and you have a sound man, it’s easy to do. It’s good to be able to mix it with your own limbs though and is an exercise in control.

Now let’s add the snare. This groove has a double time feel. Meaning, the groove sounds twice as fast as it actually is. The tempo of the song is 98bpm, but because of the snare placement it feels more like 196bpm. The snare drum is played on the “&” of each beat, rather than just on 2 & 4.

To the casual listener the beat is going to sound like this beat being played at 196bpm:

But it’s actually written & played as this beat at 98bpm:

Taking It Further

There’s two things to practice with this groove. The first is moving between a normal time feel and double time.

Try playing the groove with the snare drum on 2 and 4 with our 16th note floor tom / bass drum pattern. This will create a fake 16th note double bass drum groove that is fun to play.

Once you have that happening, try playing 2 bars of the fake double bass drum groove and then 2 bars of the original double time groove, like this:

The second thing to practice with this groove is adding in the pedalled hi-hat. This might create some co-ordination issues for you. Go slow and practice!

At first we’re adding the hi-hat on the quarter notes together with the floor tom. In the second variation we’re adding it the “&” of each beat to help reinforce the snare drum. Finally, those with fast feet can try adding the hi-hat to all the 8th notes.

I hope you’ve enjoyed groove of the week #43. If you’re in Singapore and you’d like a free trial drum lesson, send us a message on the Contact Us page.