Let’s get off-beat with this week’s groove.

This week’s groove features an off-beat hi-hat pattern played over one of my favourite bass and snare patterns. Let’s check it out.

Get The Groove

The starting point for this groove is to play the bass and snare drum pattern with an 8th note hi-hat. Hopefully you can already play this:

The next step is to play this basic groove with an off-beat hi-hat pattern instead of the 8th note hi-hat pattern. Here’s what that looks like:

Play this groove slowly with a metronome and count out loud as you play it. You want this groove sounding strong before moving on. Listen closely to the spacing of your hi-hat notes; are you playing a consistent off-beat pattern?

The second bar of this week’s groove has just one extra note that differentiates it from the first bar. Here’s the second bar:

We’re playing an additional hi-hat note on the “e” of 1; I use my left hand to play it. You could play both notes as a double stroke with the right hand, but because I’m playing the offbeat hi-hat pattern quite firmly in order to drive the groove, I didn’t want to lose any volume when playing the two 16th notes. Playing the two 16th hi-hat notes as single strokes allows me to keep the solid feel of the groove.

Once you can play the first and second bars, add them together to create the full groove. Here is the full groove:

Take It Further

Adding just one additional hi-hat note to a groove can really change the feel of a groove and create interesting variations. Try out these variations for the second bar of the groove:

Our first variation has the additional hi-hat moved to the “ah” of 2.

The second variation moves the additional hi-hat to the “e” of 3.

The final variation puts the additional hi-hat on the “ah” of 3. For this variation I suggest playing the hi-hat on the “ah” of 3 with the left hand and snare drum on beat 4 with the right hand.

Try adding one additional hi-hat note to your favourite grooves, you might find something you like.

I hope you’ve enjoyed groove of the week #46. If you’re in Singapore and you’d like a free trial drum lesson, please send us a message on the contact us page.