Here’s groove of the week #62:
This week’s groove is a fairly sparse off-beat hi-hat groove, but to liven it up we’ve added a little bit of snare drum rim action.
Using the rim of a drum to add a different colour to a groove has been done by many artists. For example, you’ll hear it on “Need You Tonight” by INXS, “Song 2″ by Blur,”Harder To Breathe” by Maroon 5 and “Solace Of You” by Living Color.
Get The Groove
Let’s take look at the basic groove that we’re going to change up.

Start by playing this basic groove. Go slow and count, make sure you get everything in the right place.
Now lets add in our first modification. This will be a floor tom and an open hi-hat on the “&” of 4. We’ll close the open hi-hat on beat 1 of the next bar.

To play this floor tom and open hi hat combination, I uncross my hands and play the floor tom with my right hand and the open hi-hat with my left.
Now let’s add in the final piece of the puzzle, the rim of the snare drum.

The rim of the snare drum is being played on beats 3 and 3e. I bring my right hand off of the hi-hat to play the rim on beat 3, my left hand plays the rim on the “e” of 3 while my right hand returns to hi-hat for the “&” of 3. There you have the full groove. Enjoy!
Taking It Further
The rim of the snare drum, or any other drum, can be a useful colour to add into your grooves. Let’s have a look at some further examples. Here’s 3 more grooves to try:

The first groove takes a fairly common ghost note groove and just moves what would be the ghost notes on to the rim of the snare drum.
The second groove takes a two-handed 16th note groove and moves the left hand down to the rim of the snare drum for all the “e” and “ah” notes.
The final variation is a linear groove with the left hand playing the hi-hat and snare drum parts, the right hand plays all the notes on the rim of the snare drum.
Experiment with your favourite grooves and see where you can add in the rim of a drum.
I hope you’ve enjoyed groove of the week #62. If you’re in Singapore and would like a free trial drum lesson, send us a message on the contact us page.