Linear grooves/fills in actual music

kettles

Gold Member
Wondering if anyone can suggest examples of what the thread title says? I have been practicing this stuff lately but struggle to think of any examples of it being used in the real world besides the Aaron Spears - Caught Up video.

I realise little snippets sneak their way into a lot of player's style's, but I'm looking for examples of playing which really utilise the linear concept.

cheers!
 
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All of Tower of Power music.

All of drummer Mike Clark's playing.

Most of Dennis Chamber's playing.


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All of Tower of Power music.

All of drummer Mike Clark's playing.

Most of Dennis Chamber's playing.


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Of course! It's about time I picked up some Tower of Power CDs. Can you recommend one?

Check out Steve Gadd on Paul Simon's 50 ways to leave your lover.

Another song I've seen talked about but never got around to listening to. Cool groove, might learn that one.

Check out US Drag by Missing Persons, it's classic Bozzio, great liner groove throughout the song. For some reason I can't embed anything.

Another cool groove, quite a cool song too that I've never heard
 
steve gadd and david garibaldi w/o a doubt...go with the tunes that were previously mentioned. carter beauford does tons of linear stuff too
 
Mike Johnson's book on linear drumming is excellent for developing linear drumming freedom. His technique reminds me of the way Benny Grebb breaks down music on his DVD except Mike doesn't really explain it in the same way. Mike's book gets you to work through numerous set patterns, on the snare and bass only, then including the hihat as a beat, then as a fill using the floor Tom, then finally including you hihat pedal to set the time. What actually happens (or so I have found) is that when you have worked through several of the patterns you start being able to interchange sections and essentially make up your own on the fly. It's excellent and I would thoroughly recommend taking a look.
 
Yeah, it's definitely far from perfectly linear (which is why I said "pretty much"). The hihat, splash and crash accents definitely keep it from being linear. I think I thought of it because most times when I've seen people attempt it, they play it with both hands on the hihat, but it's actually all right hand on the hihat, and it backs off on the snare and (most) kick drum hits.
 
Please excuse my ignorance, but what do we mean by "linear". I never thought of "50 Ways" as linear. I'm a bit confused.
 
In the strict sense of the word it means no two drums/surfaces are played at the same time. Although in reality there is some flexibility to this. Not sure about 50 Ways, I'll have to find a transcription to see exactly how he's playing it.
 
I always see it as groups of numbers like 3 + 5 or 5 +5 +5 + 1 etc
You can pretty much use it anywhere - if you are playing and intend to put a 16th note fill in a song you could make this linear instead.
I use linear a lot in R&B and certain tempos work well for it- look for live examples of "umbrella" by rihanna or just any rihanna songs live to be honest
Ditto with Justin Timberlake, Beyonce etc

They work well in other styles though
Hell I use 5+3+5+3 in an ABBA tribute hahaha (ok not exactly authentic but it sounds alright lol)
 
Ok. Thanks for the clarification. I always thought of linear as being "straight forward" and not "complex". That's why 50 Ways struck me as odd because it is a complex song (for me, anyway).
 
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