In this lesson you will be learning another variation on the 16 Beat Groove learned in level 1. The idea presented here is essentially a re working of the version played between the ride and hi hat where the hands are moved to toms rather than cymbals. It can also be thought of as applying this single stroke orchestration to a groove style pattern.
To build the basic hand pattern for this groove place the right hand on either the floor tom or mid tom and the left on either the mid tom or high tom. There are three combinations there: floor tom and high tom, floor tom and mid tom or mid tom and high tom. The important thing is that both hands are on different toms, this will create a really complicated sound groove with very minimal effort. You will then play a single stroke roll as 16th notes and as with a standard common time 16 beat, play a snare on beats 2 and 4. These will both be played with the right hand. Below is an example of this where the right hand is on the floor tom and the left the high tom. I have included an accent over the snare to make its position clearer.
This is perhap a lot easier than it looks. If the notation is confusing you try working it out from the description above then coming back to decipher the written example.
The next step will be to add bass drums in various groove patterns, I have provided several examples of this below. Before working through these examples make sure you are comfortable with the hand pattern above and experiment a little with adding kicks in common places. I have kept these examples simple and only used level 0 / level 1 style kick parts as the notation can get very complicated. This means that bass drums will only ever fall on the right hand in these examples. More complex variations on this concept will be covered in later levels. The important thing to remember for now is that you are playing straight singles at all times.
Example 1
Example 2
Example 3
Example 4
Example 5
In later lessons I will cover many other ideas based on this concept, I have listed some below so you can try them out yourself:
- Use a different rudiment as the basis for the concept.
- Combine toms and cymbals.
- Add a left foot count on the hi hat.
- Apply the concept in half and double time.
- Construct grooves in different time signatures.
TASKS
- Learn the grooves above up to a tempo of at least 140bpm.
- Create some 4 bar phrases using these grooves.
- Experiment with different kick patterns.
- Experiment with adding offbeat snares or kicks.
- Use different combinations for the hands.
