'A A A B - A A C' Structure

In this lesson you will be learning a new phrasing 'shape'. In level 1 you learned patterns that all fell into blocks of 2, 4 or 8 which made for nice logical parts and you are now most likely very comfortable with fill placement and general construction of these phrases. On this page you will be mixing things up a little by learning some seven bar parts, which will feel very similar to the three bar patterns also learned at this level. The structure will be simple enough but it may take some adjusting to the different placement of fills. The phrase could be thought of as a straight eight bar pattern with one bar of groove removed. In this lesson you'll be using three different sections and you'll get 3 bars worth of A (a groove) followed by a B (a fill), then a further two bars of A followed by a second fill. That structure will look like this:

A seven bar phrase

This structure is used for various different reasons in songs and pieces of music. One reason would be that the singer has wrote the lyrics in a way that sits best over seven bars of music. Similarly, the vocal part may fit nicely over six bars and a bar of 'padding' before the next set of vocals may work. It could also be the case that a riff or chord sequence just falls this way.

In terms of notation, if this phrasing idea is thrown in around some similar four or eight bar patterns, the line that is three bars long is usually made shorter. This helps keep the note spacing even across all lines and helps highlight the fact this short section falls within a shorter phrase.

Listed below are several example of this structure with a drum kit part applied. I have used a variety of different construction ideas but feel free to create your own parts. All patterns on this page are in the time signature of 4/4, separate lessons will be given for different time signatures.


Example 1

A seven bar phrase


Example 2

A seven bar phrase


Example 3

A seven bar phrase


Example 4

A seven bar phrase


Example 5

A seven bar phrase


TASK

  1. Using the 2 minute rule, get all phrases up to a tempo of at least 130bpm.
  2. Create your own versions of these patterns based on the original phrase.

Lessons

Buy Me A Coffee

I hope you are enjoying this free content. If you feel like buying me a coffee to say thank you you can do so here.

Buy Me A Coffee