Groove Of The Week #72

Rim Click vs Bass Drum – The ultimate battle!

Watch Groove Of The Week #72 on instagram

This week’s groove is a two bar pattern featuring a conversation between the bass drum and rim click – at least that’s how I like to think of it. We’re using 16th notes on the hi-hat (played by just one hand) to give a nice smooth back drop to the battle raging between the bass drum and rim click.

Get The Groove

Let’s begin by looking at the first bar of this conversation.

In the video, I play the whole groove at 75bpm. You may wish to start at a slower speed. The pattern is not a common pattern, it may take some time to get used to it. I tend to sing the rim click and bass drum pattern to myself while playing it.

Playing this one bar on it’s own, it feels like an incomplete phrase to me. Which is why I added bar #2.

The first three beats of the second bar are the same as the first bar, just beat 4 is different. Now we’re playing bass drums instead of rim clicks on beat 4 and we’re augmenting them with hi-hat barks.

Now let’s play the two bars together to complete the groove.

Do you hear the conversation between the rim click and bass drum? Do you hear how the second bar completes the idea of the first bar. No? Guess I must be crazy then!

Take It Further

In this groove we kind of substituted the bass drum for the rim click on beat 4 and beyond to create the two bar pattern & give the second bar an alternative ending. What would happen if we progressively switched bass drums and rim clicks throughout the rest of the bar?

Switch em

Our first variation sees us switch the bass drums on the “e” and “&” of beat 3 in the second bar to rim clicks.

Our second variation takes the groove from the first variation and now switches the voices during the second beat of the second bar as well.

Our final variation takes the groove from the second variation and now switches the voices during the first beat of the second bar to complete the idea. So now you’re playing the same rhythm, two completely different ways but it sounds like one long groove.

I hope you’ve enjoyed groove of the week #72. If you’re in Singapore and you’d like a free trial drum lesson, send us a message via the contact us page.