favourite groove

dholz

Member
if you went and sat at your kit, no music no tabs nothing, what would you likely play. I know this is a very wide topic due to the many different styles played by drummers, but lets see what we can find.

mine is probably and 8th note hat beat snare on 2 and 4. kick on 1, 3 and the and of 3. its nice simple you can fit in in with a wide variety of speeds and styles. you can also add a few more snare hits and get some cool accents, but I really like the basis of this groove. play the straight 8th notes anywhere. like i said basic, but effective.
 
Just me at my kit, no musical context, no need to actually play something that is appropriate for the music at hand.....just for the sheer enjoyment of knocking out a groove?

I'd most likely lay down a half time/Purdie/Rosanna/Fool In The Rain shuffle or variation. One of my all time favourite grooves. One of the coolest beats going round. One that I've seldom got to play in a musical context. One that inspires me to play due to all the different nuances, textures, flavours and colours you can give it. And one that I'll most likely spend a lifetime "perfecting"
 
That depends on the kit!

If it's a 26/15/16/18, I'm likely to play something Bonham

If it's a bop kit, I might do some jazz noodling.

If it's something right inbetween, I'd probably play boom, bap, ....boom, bap :)

Bermuda
 
Just me at my kit, no musical context, no need to actually play something that is appropriate for the music at hand.....just for the sheer enjoyment of knocking out a groove?

I'd most likely lay down a half time/Purdie/Rosanna/Fool In The Rain shuffle or variation. One of my all time favourite grooves. One of the coolest beats going round. One that I've seldom got to play in a musical context. One that inspires me to play due to all the different nuances, textures, flavours and colours you can give it. And one that I'll most likely spend a lifetime "perfecting"

Rosanna/Fool In The Rain for me as well. It's been at least a couple of years that I have been messing with these beats, fool in the rain I'm very comfy playing.

Rosanna on the other hand has been a lot more work to get down well. Trying to feather in that ghost note immediately after the rim shot hit has been a lot more work than I would have ever thought.

I have played the Rosanna beat only a few times where I was proud of how it sounded, but most of the time if I sit down and play it without a long warm up of exercises it sounds just ok.

If I cheat by not worrying about the ghost note right after the rim shot then I can get it to sound good without a warm up but where's the fun in that lol.
 
I dig anything with hi-hat shuffling or broken notes. Unless I'm playing classic rock covers or worst case scenario, a country jam session, I almost never play straight 8th notes. I always break them up, or play funky patterns on the hi hats. When doing this in a song I'll usually use two or three open hat strokes in a row to fill the end of a bar, rather than doing a tom roll or something.

Even though we're playing in a punk band, our bassist is a really educated gent. He knows his stuff, and he's all about taking the music up in quality by accenting different parts of the songs. So I'm always trying to emphasize on whatever he's playing, so it's not just a rhythm section pounding away, but rather a lot more musicality behind it.
 
I start out playing " when the levee breaks" and after about 4 measures, I keep the basics of the beat, but start moving stuff around, add/subtract from the bass line, add/subtract from the snare and hats, just such a fun thing to play, with endless add lib possiblilities.
 
I start out playing " when the levee breaks" and after about 4 measures, I keep the basics of the beat, but start moving stuff around, add/subtract from the bass line, add/subtract from the snare and hats, just such a fun thing to play, with endless add lib possiblilities.

"Levee" is my go-to groove too. I'll play that for my warm-up with some added fills and beat displacements.
 
I'd likely play the sound of muzak beat, I love that beat. It's really really hard to nail though. It's easy if you just play the bom bom pa, bom bom pa but with the accents on the hi hat and the ghost notes it's a different story.

Also i like playing kick on 1&, and the "a" of three, snare on 2 and 4, open hi hat on & of one. Ghost notes on the bold: 1e&a 2e&a 3e&a 4e&a
 
I'd likely play the sound of muzak beat, I love that beat. It's really really hard to nail though. It's easy if you just play the bom bom pa, bom bom pa but with the accents on the hi hat and the ghost notes it's a different story.

Also i like playing kick on 1&, and the "a" of three, snare on 2 and 4, open hi hat on & of one. Ghost notes on the bold: 1e&a 2e&a 3e&a 4e&a

Yeah, the Sound of Muzak is a tough one. The first set of ghost notes in the beat are triplets I believe and the first ghost hits along with the kick drum and hi hat.

Then you have to make the ghost notes as light as you can and get a big snappy backbeat on the snare inbetween them. A lot of dynamics and coordination involved. The song would take me a long while to perfect. I'm pleased with my progress with it though. I think just playing the kick pattern with the hi hat quarter notes and the snare backbeat helps before you slip the ghosts in, when starting off.
 
thesoundofmuzak.jpg


there you go
 
My hands-down favorite feel to "noodle" with is 6/8; if I'm feeling particularly noodly I'll do a two-or-three measure of 6/8 variation (I guess you could call it 12/8 or 18/8). There's usually some left hand ghosting on the snare and some work on the hi-hat. Since getting my new hats I've been really working on the possibilities with both hands, left foot, doubles and such on the hats. I don't know why but as much 4/4 as the world plays I really love the lilt and flow of 6/8... probably the little tiny bit of Irish in me trying to come to the fore.
 
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