Let’s do the splits!
Watch Groove Of The Week #76 Instagram
This week’s groove sees us splitting sixteenth notes between the ride cymbal and the hi-hat. This gives us a unique sounding ride pattern where the ride cymbal dominates but the hi-hat pokes through on the “e” and “ah”. We’re also doing a little bit of syncopation with the snare on the “ah” of one, just to make things funky.
Get The Groove
Let’s start this week by looking at the hands. The right hand is playing the ride cymbal on all the 8th notes, except for beat 4 where it will play the snare. The left hand is playing all the “e” and “ah” on the hi-hat, except for the “ah” of 1 where it’s playing the snare.
Practice this slowly at first and observe where you are hitting the snare drum. Try to hit the same spot on the snare (ideally the centre) with both hands so that you get roughly the same sound from the drum.
Now lets add the bass drum.
The bass drum pattern is a fairly common pattern. Be sure to listen to your bass drum placement – is it really happening together with the cymbals? Be especially careful on the “e” of 4 – that’s usually where things go wrong.
Taking It Further
Let’s explore this split hands idea further with some more grooves.
All three grooves feature the same RLRL hand pattern. The first groove is just a nice simple rock beat.
The second groove is a bit funkier with the common snare drum pattern on the “ah” of 2 and “e” of 3 and an additional snare on the “ah” of 4. Try ghosting these 3 snare drums to give an alternative feel to the groove.
The final groove is the original pattern but with a snare drum and bass drum switching positions and an additional snare on the end.
Now create some of your own split hands patterns. Try splitting the hands between floor tom and high tom instead of Ride and Hi-Hat.
I hope you’ve enjoyed groove of the week #76. If you’re in Singapore and you’d like a free trial drum lesson. Send us a message via the contact us page.