Grooves stalling... where do I go from here?

[Mighty_Joker]

Having recently got my new kit (as seen in my sig link) I've obviously been playing more than usual.

I'm starting to notice now that my grooves are running dry. Sure, I can play a linear funk pattern for 8 bars and alternate the fill at the end, but it is all just losing its feel and...well... it's "groove".

I am basically looking for a few new techniques that I can throw into my grooves to give them more of a feel, and to get that momentum going. Some drummers, one of my favourites being Rodney Holmes, can just sit at their kit and produce the most amazing sounds, the grooves just carry you. Where am I going wrong?

I think it's something to do with simplicity. Are my grooves too simple? How do I add in a bit of complexity and variation to get that wow factor?

One of my problems is that I have focused on metal drumming a lot as I am in a metal band that gigs a lot, so unfortunatly I have had to prioritise things like speed and endurance, and my groove "libido" has suffered.

Any advice?

Thanks

[ChuckSilverman]

hey

this is my first post here, so be patient. Your question(s) remind me a lot of what I hear from some of my students, both at Musicians INstitute, and at my home studio. Advice I give to them is to open up your listening experience to other styles of rhythms and drumming. I've been into Cuban and Brasilian drumming, and drumming from Uruguay, for a long time. Also, old school funk and R&B ala James Brown. You can find so much to inspire you from these sources of rhythms and grooves. What I've done is learn some of the grooves, like the tamborim patterns from Samba, and then create applications of these rhythms. The possibilities are truly endless.

Where do you live? Perhaps there's a teacher in your area who can give you some ideas as to how to do this, to be more investigative and creative.

Let me know how else I can help.

Chuck S

chucksilverman.com

[Mighty_Joker]

Hi Chuck, thanks for the reply.

I have been delving into my book collection again and produced a relatively untouched copy of Rick Latham's Advanced Funk Studies. I remember learning one of the solos and then forgetting about the book all together, so I'll learn some of the patterns in that and see what I can string together.

What are some of your favourite little flicks or fills that you like to add in to make your grooves sing?

[ChuckSilverman]

favourite "flicks or fills" hmmmm

Well, accents are very important. One thing I've learned from the "Afro Caribbean" type of rhythms, is that you can make a rhythm sound completely, or relatively, different, by creating colors by using accents. For example, and a rather obvious one, is instead of straight eighths on the HH, accenting on down or upbeats.
Also, developing and being able to actually use, musically, ghost notes in the snare is very important to give your grooves personality. Drummers like Bonham, Purdie, Mike Clark, et al use ghost notes to perfection.

CS

[n2xlr8n]

Great to have you here, Chuck.

SRJ

[NUTHA JASON]

yeah. we should have a thread devoted to you.

but on to M_Js question. groove is not necessarily made by how many notes but rather the spaces and the real value of those notes. as Chuck said ghosts accents ruffs flams...these are all options but the soul of the groove lives in placement. sure the snare might fall heavily on the 3 but is it just minutely in front of the three or a thousandth of a second behind it? how do you make the number one stand out in funk? sometimes not playing it at all? and how can a beat not be straight AND not be swung but somehow in between?
try this

R L R L R L R L R L R L R L R L

Play it dead straight and slow then gradually speed up. you will probably find that this pattern becomes impossible to play straight. it WANTS to groove. play it loose then try tighten it up. see how far you swing it. accent some of the unaccented notes slightly where they naturally want to happen...what you have is an instant drum solo.

for more on this type of theing see the DVDs by Zoro and also Stanton Moore.

j

[Mighty_Joker]

yeah. we should have a thread devoted to you.

but on to M_Js question. groove is not necessarily made by how many notes but rather the spaces and the real value of those notes. as Chuck said ghosts accents ruffs flams...these are all options but the soul of the groove lives in placement. sure the snare might fall heavily on the 3 but is it just minutely in front of the three or a thousandth of a second behind it? how do you make the number one stand out in funk? sometimes not playing it at all? and how can a beat not be straight AND not be swung but somehow in between?
try this

R L R L R L R L R L R L R L R L

Play it dead straight and slow then gradually speed up. you will probably find that this pattern becomes impossible to play straight. it WANTS to groove. play it loose then try tighten it up. see how far you swing it. accent some of the unaccented notes slightly where they naturally want to happen...what you have is an instant drum solo.

for more on this type of theing see the DVDs by Zoro and also Stanton Moore.

j


Hi, great reply, thanks.

I'll definitly try that pattern. Would you reccommend starting all on the snare, right on hats? or... just see how it flows?

[NUTHA JASON]

anywhere man. is quite a good launch vehicle into a solo so i would start it on the snare and then grow it from there but its more of a demonstration pattern. i play it often on my djembe and use all four fingers to create ruff-like patterns for all the accents.

j

[samthebeat]

It sounds like you need to tighten up. As Nutha siad it's al about placement. You gotta be able to play dead centre too. Linear patters are hard to get right, even the simple ones are tough to get tight, and getting them sounding sweet takes time. accents are also really important with this style. You simply have to become really consistant with you dynamics and timing. All your ghosts have to be the same, as do your accents.

Just work it all out very slowly to a metronome for a while and gradually you will start to groove more and more. Themn start messing round with the loap/feel of the groove, whether playing before or behind the beat, or playing it straight, shuffled or swung.

Above all groove is'nt about being complicated, it's simply about being consistant in every note your playing. Oh and listen to loads of really Groovy drummers. Check out Steve Gadd, Jeff Porcaro, Bernard Purdie, Steve Ferrone, All Greene, Benny Greb, Rick Morratta and Harvey Mason.

[wy yung]

Having recently got my new kit (as seen in my sig link) I've obviously been playing more than usual.

I'm starting to notice now that my grooves are running dry. Sure, I can play a linear funk pattern for 8 bars and alternate the fill at the end, but it is all just losing its feel and...well... it's "groove".

I am basically looking for a few new techniques that I can throw into my grooves to give them more of a feel, and to get that momentum going. Some drummers, one of my favourites being Rodney Holmes, can just sit at their kit and produce the most amazing sounds, the grooves just carry you. Where am I going wrong?

I think it's something to do with simplicity. Are my grooves too simple? How do I add in a bit of complexity and variation to get that wow factor?

One of my problems is that I have focused on metal drumming a lot as I am in a metal band that gigs a lot, so unfortunatly I have had to prioritise things like speed and endurance, and my groove "libido" has suffered.

Any advice?

Thanks

First of all, nice to see Chuck here. Chuck if you read this, thanks for all your educational efforts. I really enjoyed the Changuito timbale book.

Now for the question.

Having read your post, it seems to me as if your groove is breaking down when you play a fill. My advice is at this point to forget the fills for the moment and just concentrate on the groove. It shouldn't really matter whether or not the groove is complex or simple. What matters is that it is relaxed and in time. I would go right back to basics and put the metronome on and play a solid 2 & 4 groove with the bass drum on 1 & 3 for 30 minutes or so. I wouldn't play any fills at all. This is what I get my students to do. It can be surprisingly hard to play the same thing for that amount of time and make it feel good. When you get comfortable playing this way, begin to add fills that don't break the groove, but enhance it. Many drummers have a tendency to play fills that are more worthy of a textbook exercise than appropriate for the song and groove at hand. Once you are very comfortable playing simple for long periods, then start doing the same with more complex grooves. I also think it can help when you are playing with a band to not think in short 2, 4 or 8 bar phrases. Begin to think in terms of 16 or more bar phrases. There's generally not much need to do a fill in groove based music. Often drummers do it out of habbit and when one asks them why they played a fill, they can't answer it. It's worth remembering that one of the most popular drum breaks of all time is not fill based. Listen to The Funky Drummer by James Brown. AWESOME!

[ChuckSilverman]

hey there's some cool info already here. that accented RlRl rlrL rLrL Rlrl is a nice groove. very similar to a Brasilian pattern from the drum called the tamborim. As I mentioned earlier on, such great grooves can be found in the cultures of Brasil, Cuba, Uruguay and many others. I'll try and post some ideas here.
I just had five great students at Musicians Institute. We worked on Rock Steady by Aretha Franklin with Bernard Purdie on drums. Now THAT is one BAD AS- groove, if you know what I mean!
We also worked on one of the main Steve Gadd grooves from Nite Sprite, off of Leprechaun by Chick Corea.
So many places to find great groove ideas.
Great being here to participate.

Chuck

[spw]

Rock Steady ...you mentioned Bernard Purdie, i had to find it to hear it...awsome!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h1KgWO88WbI

Nite Sprite......i can't even imagine learning parts of it....I wish!

[samthebeat]

First of all, nice to see Chuck here. Chuck if you read this, . Listen to The Funky Drummer by James Brown. AWESOME!

Thats my favourite drum break, so hard to nail. Relxed, loose, yet totally controled and tight as.

[samthebeat]

Another great exersise to do is unision exercersises to improve your acruacy and clear up any flamming that might be going when you groove.

In Zoros book the there is an excersise called pyramid of power where you play quater notes with the high hat peadal, then move up the rhythm scale playing unision figures with your bass and snare. I found this really helped where I was having flamming problems between my left an bass.

[vadrum]

i think in order to make a pattern groove, you need to focus more on where you are playing those notes within the time. in short, youve got to play the rests too. try to be very sure that, when you break down your grooves to their most basic elements, that you can play that in time, w/ a great feel first.

other ideas that could be added to patterns would be further development of linear patterns by adding odd note groupings (3,5,7s,etc). also you could look at a more "stacked" approach ala david garabaldi, there are some fanatastic grooves that he came up w/. other notables to check out would be steve gadd, bernard purdie, zigaboo modeliste, steve ferrone, andy newmark, harvey mason, clyde stubblefield/jabo starks.....all of these drummers were groove machines and im certain you could find some inspiration by adapting some of there patterns to your musical style/taste. use their information as a foundation to work from and then start combining their patterns together or try combining your variations of their patterns, etc. until you can build a short vocabulary of new ideas to work w/. i recommend writing these things down also, just to make it easier to combine ideas, etc.

theres plenty of info out there, i think you just need to find some fresh material to stoke the creative fires.

[Robdrmz]

What I've learned from hanging out with the P-funk guys is SING THE MELODY. Don't worry about the fills, or, what you are going to play. If you have the technique to play drums then let it come out naturally.

It's takes awhile to develop, but is such a great feeling. When you've 'GOT THE FEELIN' and your humming the melody a groove will just come out of you.

I know this sounds wishful, but listen to a song called 'TALKIN OUT THE SIDE OF YOUR NECK' by CAMEO. Learn that groove so you can sing it, and git on those drums boy!

Just start playing that over and over and improvising & you will really learn a lot about yourself.

Best of luck

[Casper "DrPowerStroke" Paludan]

...I'm starting to notice now that my grooves are running dry. Sure, I can play a linear funk pattern for 8 bars and alternate the fill at the end, but it is all just losing its feel and...well... it's "groove".....
I think it's something to do with simplicity. Are my grooves too simple? How do I add in a bit of complexity and variation to get that wow factor?
Thanks
My 2 cents: if your grooves are stalling, it means they start out right, and then "run dry". That is in your head, my friend: if you keep playing the same thing over and over, it should sound the same or better. There are SO many examples of 100 repetitive drum grooves that deepen and deepen (Purdie and Gadd come to mind) with each repetition. After 5 minutes, they put in a crash and it is like all the tension is just released. no complicated fills....it's the wrong way to look in my opinion. I agree with Rob, let it come out naturally.

"Are my grooves too simple?". That is impossible. A groove CANNOT be too simple. Your grooves are too complex! If you add all the spiff in the first bar, where do you go from there? Let go of the artificial notion of "linear patterns" and listen to some James Brown. Then sit down and play like yourself. Be simple, love your sound, and you will be impossible to sit still to!!! God luck, DPS

[Mighty_Joker]

Thanks for even more great replies. I'll certainly take the advice into consideration when playing.

[Deathmetalconga]

hey

this is my first post here, so be patient. Your question(s) remind me a lot of what I hear from some of my students, both at Musicians INstitute, and at my home studio. Advice I give to them is to open up your listening experience to other styles of rhythms and drumming. I've been into Cuban and Brasilian drumming, and drumming from Uruguay, for a long time. Also, old school funk and R&B ala James Brown. You can find so much to inspire you from these sources of rhythms and grooves. What I've done is learn some of the grooves, like the tamborim patterns from Samba, and then create applications of these rhythms. The possibilities are truly endless.

Where do you live? Perhaps there's a teacher in your area who can give you some ideas as to how to do this, to be more investigative and creative.

Let me know how else I can help.

Chuck S

chucksilverman.com

This is very good advice.

I would also suggest picking up another instrument, even a hand percussion instrument that is relatively easy for a drummer to get into, such as a djembe. You will learn to create music in new ways and that will influence your kit drumming.

www.terrasonus.com

[JacobKaye]

This is probably something we all are aware of... but, sometime we take it for granted... I will parpahrase this quote and acknowledge the source on this great advice: "Start slowly and relaxed....do not rush to get to the end. After you become familiar with the technical-coordination aspect, then you can work on feel, groove, dynamics, and applications for a variety of musical situations....try to think and play "musically" in four bar phrases...it is a good idea sing each part of the groove, one at a time, as you play the groove..." Gary Chester, "The New Breed"
I hope this helps, and above all...The quickest way to get to where you don't want to go is by taking the shortcut.

[syaoran05]

opening my hi hat does the magic for me. if i feel that things need to groove up, i just lift my left foot... and everything just explodes right after that.