Larry
"Uncle Larry"
My son were having a discussion on what groove is. He played a rather choppy but repetitive beat on his body. I said that IMO a groove is smooth, not choppy. It's fluid-like.
I related that I think of a groove as at least one element remaining more or less static, non-changing basically, while at least one more element weaves in and out of the steady time line. The more elements, the more the possibilities of complexity. Rhythms are simple, complex, and somewhere in the middle.
Then he posed me the question...can you make a groove with just one voice, like say a snare drum. Well of course you can. A 2nd line snare part for example. However, we came to the conclusion that the more interesting grooves, in our opinion, involve at least 2 voices, bass and snare for example. What we consider a simple D&B groove, actually has at least 4 elements going on, kick, snare, hat, bass guitar.
We were just trying to get a mental handle of the elements that go into the making of a good groove, so I thought I'd hand it off here, to see what this community's thoughts are.
I related that I think of a groove as at least one element remaining more or less static, non-changing basically, while at least one more element weaves in and out of the steady time line. The more elements, the more the possibilities of complexity. Rhythms are simple, complex, and somewhere in the middle.
Then he posed me the question...can you make a groove with just one voice, like say a snare drum. Well of course you can. A 2nd line snare part for example. However, we came to the conclusion that the more interesting grooves, in our opinion, involve at least 2 voices, bass and snare for example. What we consider a simple D&B groove, actually has at least 4 elements going on, kick, snare, hat, bass guitar.
We were just trying to get a mental handle of the elements that go into the making of a good groove, so I thought I'd hand it off here, to see what this community's thoughts are.