The grooves in this lesson are all in 7/8 and are going to be translating the half time feel into this time signature. The basic principle of half time was to decrease the number of main snare beats in the bar to create a slower feel and in 4/4 you went from two snares per bar to one snare per bar and in 6/8 you went from one snare per bar to one every second bar. In 7/8 you will still have one snare per bar but the bar is extended slightly compared to 6/8. This extended feel creates a 'spare' eighth note at the end of the bar, you will see what I mean by this when you play the grooves.
The concept of Half Time is hopefully fairly familiar to you know so the main purpose of this exercise is to get you comfortable with the odd application of this idea in 7/8. Below are five examples of this style of groove using slightly different construction methods in each.
Example 1
Example 2
Example 3
Example 4
Example 5
TASK
- Using the 2 minute rule, get all grooves up to a tempo of at least dotted crotchets at 90bpm.
- For each example, play a bar of standard 7/8 groove followed by a half time 7/8 groove. This will help you get a better feel for the concept.
- Create further variations on these grooves.
- Apply these grooves to a phrased piece as either the groove or fill. .