Every Groove Essentials 2.0 Groove

Wow I somehow completely missed this thread. It's gonna take a while to go through it all, but so far, I'm really digging it!
 
Hey, been about six months since the update. The next one was fairly easy, but 82 - fast took me months to get up to speed. I pretty much did most of these the past couple of weeks, and they're some of my best videos so far of this series, hope you enjoy them :)

Woah, this has been my first update since the forums got updated, it shows previews now! That's insane!

Groove 82 - Slow -
Groove 82 - Fast -
Groove 83 -
Groove 84 -
 
And another long while since the last update. Some of these grooves toward the end of the book are hard! I did a few more grooves back in December, but 87 - Fast took me exactly 7 months to nail; those left hand shuffles at 225 bpm are freaking insane! Regardless, I nailed it today, so here's the next chunky update! Looking ahead, there's not anything too hard until like Groove 91 or so, so the next update of 4-5 should be pretty soon.

Groove 85 -
Groove 86 -
Groove 87 Slow -
Groove 87 Fast -
 
Like I said, the next four were pretty easy and I managed to score one a week. Not a super fun batch, the linear groove of 89 is kinda cool. But I'm finally done with the Specialty section of Groove Essentials, onto the odd-meters!

Groove 88 Slow -
Groove 88 Fast -
Groove 89 -
Groove 90 -
 
Thanks! I'm getting so close to the end, just 10 more grooves! Although they're all the crazy 5/8, 7/8, 9/8 stuff, it'll be challenging mentally but at least none of them are physically demanding. Not like Groove 80, 82, and 87 fast were (which were my biggest breaks because I just physically could not play them at tempo....especially Groove 80 fast, it was a year and half in between, which is why I had no videos in 2018).
 
That's amazing dedication! I admire your work, and I love seeing the progress you made. Excellent!
 
Yeah the average quality of the playing has improved for sure. The first 4 rock videos, for example, aren't really that great. It wasn't until the Funk section that I started feeling more comfortable and the playing improved. Still some clunkers in the RnB and Jazz section, but I have to say this recent World/Specialty section is overall very solid and has some of my best playing I've ever recorded period!

Part of me wants to go back and redo the worst ones (like 48 Fast or 68) but considering it'll be about 6 years by the time I'm done, I think I"ll just lay this to rest. Plus, there are the Global Tours to tackle afterward, which do go over some of the older grooves.
 
Starting on the Odd Meter section, here's a funk in 3 and a several grooves in 5/4 and 5/8. The first three were pretty simple, last one took me about a month of shedding. Having a lot of fun so far, aside from the Basic 5, these are all pretty cool grooves and songs.

Groove 91 -
Groove 92 -
Groove 93 -
Groove 94 -
 
Dude you've got the best posture of any drummer ever (I've been working on mine). I've really enjoyed your videos-this effort very inspiring and you can see the improvement-I also like the honesty how long it took to nail some of it (it would take me longer). Do/did you use/apply the grooves gigging or did the exercises help you to be more creative and groove like a son-of-gun in general? Sounding great my friend!!!
 
Dude you've got the best posture of any drummer ever (I've been working on mine). I've really enjoyed your videos-this effort very inspiring and you can see the improvement-I also like the honesty how long it took to nail some of it (it would take me longer). Do/did you use/apply the grooves gigging or did the exercises help you to be more creative and groove like a son-of-gun in general? Sounding great my friend!!!

Thanks, never thought that about my posture, but others have told me I do have good posture. Gotta thank the deadlifts for that one!

Yes, I have applied some of the grooves to songs. Off the top of my head, Groove 50, 51, 67, 82, and 84 I have used in all sorts of different gigs.
 
Just finished the 7/8 grooves. Groove 96 is by far my favorite 'song' in Groove Essentials, and have been waiting to play it since I first bought it 6 years ago. So that's exciting. Groove 97 is a bit mediocre, I worked decently hard at it but just couldn't get a great take. Luckily I mixed it to mask my poor bass drum playing, haha. The final result doesn't sound too bad. Now I only have 3 left, and I hope to get it by the end of the year, or by the 6th anniversary of me starting this (which is December 28th I think?).

Groove 95 -
Groove 96 -
Groove 97 -
 
I’m digging 96 and 97 song wise-and as always a great job playing.
 
This is phenomenal, man. I'm really impressed. I've been working through these books for a while now, but your dedication here is inspiring. It was your comment about working on the Advanced Lifetime Warmup for several years before you could play the paradiddle variations that inspired me to start using that warmup every day. I can play them now and it took me also over a year to get them up to tempo. There is nothing like methodically working through stuff and seeing the improvement over time. I'm currently on a similar journey with the Wilcoxon rudimental solos book.

Well done and know that you've inspired a fellow drummer.
 
I love that you've been doing this project and keeping us updated and am always pleased to have a new batch from you. I'm also chargrined at how little progress I've made since I got the book last Christmas...
 
Amazing that you have stayed with this project for years. Very few people can follow through with anything this well. Impressive perseverance!
 
Thanks guys. Yeah there have been moments when this took way longer than it should have. My first year spent on this was more laziness than anything, and there was a year and a half period where I made no videos because the next one was just too physically difficult for me, but I never really pressed myself hard to get it down. But there have been methodical approaches to me figuring out different grooves. The Texas Shuffle (whichever groove # that was) I got down by working on the marching warmup Double Beat, but played as double stops. And the more recent Groove 87 fast took me awhile because I was woodshedding my left hand up to speed by playing out of New Breed and focusing on the hi-hat on the left hand (System 3 I believe?). Doing things like that made these grooves easier.

I'll be recording Groove 98 today, then I'll have two more left!
 
Last edited:
Guys, I'm now done. 5 years, 11 months, 21 days later, I have finished all 72 tracks in Groove Essentials 2.0! Here's the last batch, the 9/8 tracks.

Overall, I like the 9/8 more than the 5/8 and 7/8 sections, although Groove 96 (7/8 intermediate) is still my favorite. The last two here are really cool, and I really like the solo I did in Groove 100. I usually don't zip around with single strokes up and down the toms, but decided to do that this time. And I didn't hit any rims. How bout that?

I'll keep this post brief, I'll have other posts about statistics and interesting things I learned from this experience. Even though the Grooves have now all been recorded, there are still 4 Global Tours to complete. Global Tours are medleys of 5 random songs from the rest of the book, so no new material, they're just 15 minutes long. I'll rest on this a few months before tackling those. I also need a new camera, as my Nikon can only do max 5 minute videos (and its 720p is showing its age).

Groove 98 -
Groove 99 -
Groove 100 -
 
Back
Top