This week we’re taking a favourite rock beat and adding a couple of finishing touches. Check it out!

I always find it amazing how just adding a four stroke ruff here and a couple of accents there can completely change the feel of a groove. Let’s learn the groove.

Get The Groove

Let’s start by looking at the simple groove that we are changing up. Hopefully you can already play this one:

Our first stop in changing this groove up is to add the 4 stroke ruff starting on beat one. This is an open 4 stroke ruff played as three 16th note triplets and an 8th note.

I accent the final note of the 4 stroke ruff and play the snare drum on beat 2 with the right hand.

Our final step is to add in one more 16th note and two more accents. We’ll be playing an accented hi-hat on the “ah” of 2 with the left hand and an accented hi-hat on beat 3 with the right hand. Here’s the full groove.

Take It Further

If you like the embellishments that we’ve made here, then you can try adding them to some of your favourite grooves. Keep the hi-hat and snare drum pattern the same, just change up the bass drum. Here’s some ideas:

Try out these four variations and then try to come up with some of the your own.

I hope you’ve enjoyed groove #49. If you’re in Singapore and you’d like a free trial drum lesson, send us a message on the contact us page.