Full Bar Double 33334 Kick Placement In 4/4 Grooves

In this groove construction lesson you will taking the 3334 Kick Pattern learned in level two and will be altering the kick placement slightly. A 33334 Sixteenth Note Rhythm reffered to set groupings of sixteenth notes and the groove linked above was built by placing a kick on the first beat of these smaller groupings. In these grooves you will now play a note on the first two of each grouping and apply it as a kick pattern underneath a right hand and snare part to create a one bar groove pattern.

This will create a solid, syncopated rhythm on the kick that will sound great. The constant more steady rhythm of the right hand left hands will highlight this offbeat rhythm further. The double '33334' rhythm discussed above looks like this:

The rhythm for this concept

To apply to a groove you are going to follow a similar process to the level 0 Rhythm First construction method. See if you can put a common time groove together yourself before looking at the example below using the method presented in that lesson. There are two ways I will present this. First of all one where the kick isn't played when a snare appears and the second where the kick keeps playing regardless of what the snare is doing, as with the level two lesson linked above. These two ideas are shown below for a straight common time version of this idea:

The rhythm applied to a common time groove

Spend some time getting comfortable with this pattern, focus on that double 33334 syncopated rhythm on the kick and make that the prominent point of the part. When you have the groove at a comfortable tempo, start changing both the right hand rhythm and orchestration. You could also try applying this part to half and double time patterns. Some different construction ideas following some of these ideas are shown below. In all, that syncopated rhythm should be the focus of the groove.


Example 1

This is just a simple right hand variation where the crash ride is played as crotchets.

A double 33334 rhythmed groove


Example 2

Here a half time snare placement is used. On the left is a more simple version and in the right hand version some ghost notes are added. Note that a snare is added on beat 3 even though it isn't part of the base rhythm.

A double 33334 rhythmed groove


Example 3

This groove is in double time, the two kick placement ideas are covered here.

A double 33334 rhythmed groove


Example 4

An interesting pattern where crashes are used on the right hand that follow the kick drum rhythm exactly. Again, the two kick placement ideas are shown.

A double 33334 rhythmed groove


Example 5

Using offbeat eighth notes on the right hand to add an extra layer of rhythm to the part.

A double 33334 rhythmed groove


Example 6

Finally, to up the difficulty a little try adding a left foot count. On the left this is shown as crotchets under a half time groove and on the right as quavers.

A double 33334 rhythmed groove


TASK

  1. Learn the grooves above up to a tempo of at least 120bpm.
  2. Experiment with different placement ideas and orchestrations.
  3. Use the concept as part of a phrased example.
  4. Try constructing longer patterns based on this rhythm, such as two or four bar grooves, where the syncopated rhythm continues through the whole phrase.
  5. Try constructing a groove based on a shorter version of this phrase.

Lessons

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