In this lesson I will be talking through an idea that involves combining two right hand ideas learned in previous lessons but with the hands using the opposite sticking to what you would normally expect to see. The parts presented here are relatively simple and are laying a foundation for more complex patterns where the right and left hands are playing two different parts to create a far more musical and percussive sound. I refer to these kind of grooves as 'multi layered'. We'll actually be cheating a little here and will be playing the left hand on the hi hat to get the second of our two parts in.
Through this groove the left hand will be playing quarter notes somewhere on the left hand side of the kit, so the hi hat, splash and crash are amongst your options. The right hand will be playing eighth notes on the ride whilst also playing the backbeat on the snare. On this page I will break the pattern down before providing several examples of kick placement.
Right Hand Part
The right hand is the slightly more complex part of this groove so let's start by getting that down. Play eighth notes on the ride then on beats 2 and 4 you will jump over to the snare. That looks like this:
On its' own this part isn't at all complicated but it will help to be very comfortable with it before adding in the left hand. Spend some time playing this part now and make sure your technique remains good through the odd movement. Playing the back beat with the right hand may feel unusual so use this time to get this feeling a little more comfortable.
Adding The Left Hand
The left hand is just going to play quarter notes and I will notate these for the hi hat to start off with. That will look like this:
Simple Kicks
In this step you will be adding bass drums on beats 1 and 3 before moving on to busier movements. That will look like this:
More Complex Kick Patterns
Finally I'm just going to give you a list of grooves using the hands given above with more difficult kick movements. I will be mixing up the orchestration of the hands to show you the wide variety of options you have.
The important rule to follow is that the right hand needs to stay on the right hand side of the kit and the left on the left hand side.
Example 1
Example 2
Example 3
Example 4
Example 5
TASK
- Learn all exercises upto a tempo of at least 150bpm.
- Experiment with orchestration.
- Apply this pattern to a phrased example as either the groove or fill.
