Galloping Floor Tom Groove

The groove shown in this lesson will be based entirely on this Sixteenth Note Grouping. You will be playing this rhythm on the floor tom, creating a 'galloping' feel. Snares will then be added to create both common and half time grooves. The tricky part to this groove will be the sticking. To avoid crossed arms when adding the snare you will be throwing in a double stroke and before we move on to some full groove patterns I will go over that now.

The hands for this part will look like this. Take careful note of the sticking underneath:

The concept

Notice that all snares are played with a left hand and immediately before each snare you get a double stroke on the right. Spend some time practicing the hands on their own, make sure that the double strokes are as loud as the singles.

Listed below are some examples of this groove with bass drums applied. I have included some half time patterns here too. In all examples I have included the sticking to clarify where the double strokes go. Remember that the point of the double stroke is to allow the snare to be played with the left hand to prevent the right crossing over the left.

I find that using a Four On The Floor pattern works really well with this kind of groove, that is shown in example 1. That makes a groove very similar to that used in the song Always by Panic At The Disco, and many other songs.

In later lessons you will be expaning on this idea by adding additional 16th note snares. The intention here is just to familiarize you with the basic groove concept.


Groove Example 1

A groove with the concept applied


Groove Example 2

A groove with the concept applied


Groove Example 3

A groove with the concept applied


Groove Example 4

A groove with the concept applied


Groove Example 5

A groove with the concept applied


Groove Example 6

A groove with the concept applied


Groove Example 7

A groove with the concept applied


Example Piece

Below I have used the groove concept in a short piece. I have used the initial 16th note grouping as a 'theme' here so it will crop up in other grooves and fills.

A short piece with the concept applied

TASK

  1. Learn all exercises upto a tempo of at least 140bpm.
  2. Experiment with constructing different grooves using this concept.

Lessons

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