is it the snare on 3 instead of 2 and 4 that sets the half time feel?

[basset52]

This might help:
View attachment 118740
R = ride
S = snare
K = kick

Very Helpful - thank you! Can I ask what is the difference between a 1/2 time shuffle and a Reggae beat - is it that the snare and the kick are together on '3" in Reggae?

 

[C. Dave Run]

Very Helpful - thank you! Can I ask what is the difference between a 1/2 time shuffle and a Reggae beat - is it that the snare and the kick are together on '3" ?

I must admit I don't listen to much reggae, but the internet says (take it how you want lol) that yes, the kick and snare should fall together on the 3 in a reggae shuffle.

I found this guy:

The first half is based around the half time shuffle. The second half is a double shuffle variant.

 

[JimmyM]

There are considerably more than one reggae beat, bro. A half time shuffle is what it is, but reggae's got tons of different beats. However, I'll give you that there many half time shuffles in reggae, but done a little differently.

 

[C. Dave Run]

There are considerably more than one reggae beat, bro. A half time shuffle is what it is, but reggae's got tons of different beats. However, I'll give you that there many half time shuffles in reggae, but done a little differently.

Totally. While trying to find a nice reggae shuffle I came across the 1 drop. I've heard of "make the 1 drop" in hip hop, but not the 1 drop reggae beat.

This is why music is awesome. I'm still learning things, even just nomenclature, after 30 years.

 

[someguy01]

Gil is a great source for anything reggae

 

[Multijd]

Half time. Listen to the guitar before the drums come in and you might feel like playing the beat twice as fast.

 

[Multijd]

Classic “Purdie” (half time) shuffle.

 

[Multijd]

Very Helpful - thank you! Can I ask what is the difference between a 1/2 time shuffle and a Reggae beat - is it that the snare and the kick are together on '3" in Reggae?

This is an interesting observation. Most people seem to credit the half time shuffle to Bernard Purdie as in “Home at Last” and then “Babylon Sisters” recorded by Steely Dan. I’ve yet to find an example prior to that. But it seems unbelievable to me that it didn’t exist prior. My suspicions are that it spawned in the fertile ground of New Orleans and that the cross pollination of early Rhythm and Blues with Caribbean music may be the source.

 

[GetAgrippa]

Half-time music existed before Purdie so I'm sure half-time shuffles predated Bernard. I know there has to be lots of old times half-time shuffles in the music my parents danced to? Hound dog is an Elvis halftime shuffle isn't it?

 

[criz p. critter]

Very Helpful - thank you! Can I ask what is the difference between a 1/2 time shuffle and a Reggae beat - is it that the snare and the kick are together on '3" in Reggae?

Totally. While trying to find a nice reggae shuffle I came across the 1 drop. I've heard of "make the 1 drop" in hip hop, but not the 1 drop reggae beat.

Comparing halftime to reggae is comparing apples to oranges. They share some characteristics but are two different animals.

One Drop is the classic reggae beat/style played (and some say invented) by Carlton and Aston Barrett in Bob Marley's Wailers. I've not heard the hip hop expression "make the one drop", but it sounds a lot to me like it's from James Brown's philosophy of "on the one", meaning to emphasize the one in every bar.

Speaking of halftime and One Drop... last week in practice we were playing "25 or 6 to 4" by Chicago. I got inspired and started playing a Carly Barrett beat, complete with his triplet feel on the hihat... It was a perfect combination. One of those magical inspired things that come out of nowhere when you're playing with a group of talented musicians.

 

[criz p. critter]

There are considerably more than one reggae beat, bro. A half time shuffle is what it is, but reggae's got tons of different beats. However, I'll give you that there many half time shuffles in reggae, but done a little differently.

Best case in point being the rhythm section of Sly and Robbie (Sly Dunbar and Robbie Shakespeare), who played with Peter Tosh after he split the Wailers to do his own thing. (And then they went on to play with and produce everyone else in the world after that.) Sly is associated with the "Rockers" beat, which has a four on the floor kick. Frankly, I've always thought that it sounded too "martial", as in military or marching music. Pretty much the antithesis of reggae. Every beat has the same emphasis, and you totally lose that up & down, bouncing feel of One Drop.

 

[Multijd]

Half-time music existed before Purdie so I'm sure half-time shuffles predated Bernard. I know there has to be lots of old times half-time shuffles in the music my parents danced to? Hound dog is an Elvis halftime shuffle isn't it?

Hound Dog isn’t a half time shuffle. It sits in between a straight time shuffle and rock and roll depending which part of the rhythm section you focus on. I believe that the half time shuffle must have existed before Purdie also. I’d love to have an example of this. And I maintain the view that the roots of Reggae are in NO R&B and Caribbean rhythms. I believe the half time shuffle springs from subsequent rare-collision of that music. In other words when Jamaican music re-influenced NO music.

 

[someguy01]

maintain the view that the roots of Reggae are in NO R&B and Caribbean rhythms.

I don't want to derail this thread by making it about Reggae, but the roots of Reggae are the ska and rocksteady Jamaican sounds of the 60s, Calypso, and a modicum of American jazz for the swing.
Back to half time:
I like Mike, he makes everything so approachable and he's a great personality

 

[timmdrum]

I must admit I don't listen to much reggae, but the internet says (take it how you want lol) that yes, the kick and snare should fall together on the 3 in a reggae shuffle.

...in a half-time reggae shuffle. The style of music doesn't change anything. The kick and snare (usually a rim click when played in unison) can be a regular 2 and 4 also.

 

[timmdrum]

I don't want to derail this thread by making it about Reggae, but the roots of Reggae are the ska and rocksteady Jamaican sounds of the 60s, Calypso, and a modicum of American jazz for the swing.

Yes- a big part of how the seemingly "upside-down" beats came about in Jamaican music is that they were catching jazz and r&b over AM and shortwave radio from the US, and it was difficult to decipher what the drummers were doing via the lo-fi radios & their speakers, so it got combined with other world music styles (I suppose mainly African...?) and became its own thing. The lo-fi sound also informed the tonal development of the drum sound- the drums on the radio didn't sound very resonant, and heads were scarce & expensive, so the dead-sounding repaired-with-tape tone (except timbales, somehow...?) happened to fit what they heard.

 

[C. Dave Run]

...in a half-time reggae shuffle. The style of music doesn't change anything. The kick and snare (usually a rim click when played in unison) can be a regular 2 and 4 also.

Yeah I was just trying to answer the question as simply as possible. While anything can be played anywhere under the framework of a named beat, the kick and snare accentuating the beat simultaneously seems to be a staple in reggae.