In this lesson you will be applying a swung feel to a syncopated dotted eighth note right hand part for 6/8 grooves. To do this, you will be playing switching the existing dotted eighths to standard eighths and playing a sixteenth note just before each main stroke. I have shown the right hand part on its own below with counting:
As this is quite a complex rhythm, having some kind of solid pulse to latch on to is really useful and you can achieve that by playing eighth notes on the left foot hi hat. This will keep you rooted in the time signature and will help with adding decoration to the groove and with switching between different feels. Below is that same pattern with the right hand on the ride with a left foot added as eighth notes.
Before moving on, ensure you can play the rhythm shown above accurately at a decent tempo. Listed below are a six examples of groove applied under this hand pattern. Use these given examples as a basis for building your own grooves using this idea. In all examples I have left in that left foot count as I feel this is very useful within this kind of syncopated pattern.
Example 1
Example 2
Example 3
Example 4
Example 5
Example 6
TASK
- Using the 2 minute rule, get all grooves up to a tempo of at least 140bpm.
- Create further variations on these grooves.
- Apply these grooves to a phrased piece as either the 'A' or 'B' section. .
