Drumkit
Latin Grooves
These grooves will work in a number of situations. The first pattern features the three-two clave on the snare drum crossed stick and the second pattern, the two-three clave. The third groove has a Merengue feel.
Latin Groove 1
Latin Groove 2
Latin Groove 3
This third pattern will fit well with the Merengue rhythm or Lambada and the crossed stick can be played as a full snare sound.
Latin Groove Merengue Feel midi file
Shuffle (Jazz/Blues)
The shuffle rhythm, heard in so many blues and jazz tunes, is based on a triplet feel which you should have no trouble accomplishing if you have been practicing the triplets on the Exercises page.
Shuffle - Short Drum Fills
Bass Drum with Funk
When you are talking about Funk you enter the territory of off beats and off beats on the bass drum are what make these rhythms swing.
The sticking of the sixteenth notes is right left right left etc.
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Indie/Drum n' Bass/Pop Beats
The next rhythm falls well outside of the latin category but features in so much pop music these days that it will be useful to drummers viewing the page and so I have included them here. The pattern seems to occur in some Merseybeat music and can be heard on Jimi Hendrix early work, played by Mitch Mitchell. It resurfaced in the Indie rhythms of the eighties and is nowadays common in Drum n' Bass.
Chop and change it around for a whole range of Drum n' Bass and Funk patterns. You do this by whipping it up a bit on the hi hat and maybe leave out one or two of the bass drum beats. Perhaps leave out a snare beat or just play two and four snare. Liaise with the bass player and drop to just hi hat or something else for dynamic effects. Then bring in a clave from the Clave and Bells page and you will sound great.
The first group of patterns features the same bass drum and snare sequence with eighth notes, sixteenth notes and off beat eighth notes on the hi hat.
Eighth Notes
Sixteenth notes
Off Beats
Drum Fills
Herte is a selection of basic fills for straight patterns on the drum kit (shuffle drum fills appear in the shuffle section above). These examples can be played with most bass drum and hi hat patterns and the fills are played over the last half-bar of a two bar phrase. These are played with eighth notes on hi hats but you can play them on the ride cymbal if required. In the context of a song, the fill might be played at the end of an eight or sixteen bar section. Some passages of music may require a longer fill, in which case it should commence earlier, eg. taking up the whole of the last bar in the section.
Short drum fills.
Some drum fills with a different sticking from the usual right,left,right,left etc.
We hope this has been useful to you. If you have any comments or questions, please e-mail me.
E-mail phil@littledrum.co.uk
All material on this site is copyright Phil Little 2001,