In this lesson you will be playing crotchets on the right hand of 7/8 grooves. In 4/4 this was an incredibly simple idea as it latched on nicely to the pulse of the bar however it won't be so easy in this time signature. As you should know by know, in 7/8 there are seven quaver counts. A quick bit of maths will tell you that you can fit three and a half crotchets into each of these bars, meaning the right hand isn't going to line up nicely with the bar lines. I have notated how the right hand will work below, first of all as straight quavers:
As you can see, in the first bar you will be playing on the even counts and in the second the odd counts and after two bars the right hand lines up with the start of the bar again. If we notated that with crotchets it looks like this:
Try playing this two bar rhythm a long to a metronome playing quavers and get a feel for how the part falls. Listed below are several examples of the part with groove applied underneath. The first bar will feel a lot like standard 4/4 patterns did but cut a little short. The second bar will feel a lot like grooves with an offbeat eighth note hi hat. At the bottom of the page you will find links to other lessons you may find helpful when learning these parts, included those concepts just mentioned.
To keep things relatively simple, I have kept the same kick/snare pattern going through both bars.
Example 1
Example 2
Example 3
Example 4
Example 5
Example 6
TASK
- Learn all grooves up to a tempo of at least 125bpm.
- Create your own grooves using the given parts as a starting point.
- Apply these pattern within a longer phrase.
