Let’s get linear-ish….

This week’s groove features a funky 16th note bass drum pattern and a spicy 16th and 32nd note hi-hat pattern. Meanwhile the snare just plays it cool on beats 2 & 4. If you like this groove, check out groove of the week #37 for a similar idea.

Get The Groove

Let’s start by looking at the groove that gives us the basis for this one.

So our basic groove is a funky 16th note bass drum groove with your standard 8th note hi-hat pattern and snare on beats 2 & 4. Play this groove first and get a good feel for it before you start changing it.

Our first step is to make beat 1 linear. We do this be simply moving the hi-hat on beat 1 to the “e” of one. I play the “e” of 1 with my left hand and the “&” of one with my right. This gives my left hand enough time to come down to play the snare on beat 2. You can play both hi-hat notes with the right hand, but the left hand coming up to play the hi-hat looks cooler.

Beat 2 is going to stay the same throughout these changes, so our next change will be to beat 3. We’ll take this transformation in 2 steps. The first step is to play sixteenth notes on the hi-hat on beat 3. I play these hand to hand – RLRL – with the right hand coming down to strike the snare drum on beat 4 and then hitting the hi-hat on the “&” of 4.

Once you are comfortable with this variation of the groove, then you can add the 32nd notes into beat 3. We’re going to double the right hand on beat 3 and the “&” of 3.

The final modification is to beat 4; we’re going to change the “&” of 4 to 16th notes, and play them RL. Here’s the full groove with the sticking pattern to help you out.

Taking It Further

Here’s some further grooves using similar ideas.

In these 3 variations we’re adding 32nd notes and linear ideas to fairly simple Bass and Snare drum beats. You can start as we did earlier, by playing the bass drum and snare drum pattern with a regular 8th note hi-hat and then changing one thing or one beat at a time until you can play the full groove.

Once you can play these ideas, create some of your own.

I hope you’ve enjoyed groove of the week #66. If you’re in Singapore and you’d like a free trial drum lesson, send us a message via the contact us page.