In this lesson you will be taking three blast beats learned previously in this level and will be altering the right hand part to create a much more rhythmically interesting part. It is essential that you have covered the Constant 8th Note Blast Beat (which in this lesson will be played as constant 16ths), Reverse Sub-Divided 8th Blast Beat and Sub-Divided 8th Blast Beat before starting this lesson.
What you will be doing is rather than playing a straight eighth or quarter note part on the right hand is playing a synopated rhythm that is four groups of 3 semi quavers followed by two eighth notes, which is sometimes reffered to as a '3 3 3 3 2' pattern. The notation for this rhythm is shown below, using 16th notes and rests on the right and the standard notation on the left:
In the list of parts below, this right hand has been added to the three blast beats linked above. Start off by playing the parts slowly to make sure the right hand is falling correctly then work on building up the tempo. I have shown the right hand in various voices, ride bells, chinas and splashes are particularly affective for this idea but it works any where. Remember that if you are struggling to get your feet up to tempo, double kick is an option.
Don't let the fact that this lesson is relatively short fool you into thinking the idea is easy, the two different rhythms used make it quite hard to keep track of where you are and can take a lot of practice. You will know when you have these ideas perfected when you can flick between listening to the rhythm of the right hand and of the kick/snare at will.
Constant 16th Note Blast Beat
Reverse Sub-Divided 8th Blast Beat
Sub-Divided 8th Blast Beat
TASK
- Learn the examples above to a tempo of at least 200bpm.
- Experiment with the orchestration of the grooves.
- Apply the grooves to songs and phrases as either a fill or groove.
