As well as our 'musical punctuation' concept we can also use the crash to highlight or 'accent' certain beats in a bar. This can either be a recurring pattern to continuously accent set beats or just the odd crash to coincide with other parts happening in the song. For example if all the other instruments play an accented note on a specific beat, you could add a crash to your groove to add emphasis. Written below are some examples of grooves where the crash is used in this manner. A note is included to show possible uses of each pattern.
Example 1
A groove where crashes are played on beats 2 and 4 with the snare. Notice that all crashes are played as quarter notes and the hi hats as eighth notes.
Example 2
A four bar pattern where beat 4 of the last bar is accented with a crash. Note the use of a crash at the start of the phrase too.
Example 3
A two bar pattern where beats 3 and 4 of the second bar are accented using two different crashes.
Example 4
A groove where beats 1 and 3 are accented with two different crashes.
We could add to the notation above by using the '>' notation above the notes we are accenting but this isn't strictly necessary.
TASK
- Learn all given examples up to a tempo of at least 120bpm.
- Add crashes to various other grooves.
- Use these patterns as both fills and grooves in a Phrased Examples.
