In this lesson you will learn how to use a Single Stroke 4 to decorate a groove. It is important to have covered at least the sticking for this rudiment before trying these grooves, it is well worth working on adding feet and orchestrating the basic rudiment first too.
Listed below are several grooves where a single stroke four is added at a specific point (or points) within the bar. Remember that what is presented here is an idea for you to construction your own grooves so experiment with different kick and snare patterns in each given example then play around with using the rudiment in various different ways.
A note is included with each example to further help you create your own parts based on the given idea.
Example 1
Just play one occurance of the straight rudiment starting on beat 1.
Example 2
Play the rhythmic variation of the rudiment that ends on the beat and start it on the '+' after beat 2.
Example 3
This time you will be starting the rudiment on beat 2, which means it will start on the snare. When this happens the sticking is spread over the two voices, which as you can see below if reflected in the notation.
Example 4
The same idea as bove applies when the rudiment ends on a snare. This is shown with the rudiment starting on the '+' count after beat 3.
Example 5
Here the single stroke four is used through the whole bar, starting on the beat. This is sort of a variation on the 16 Beat concept.
Example 6
This example can be thought of as a variation of the previous groove, but this time the rudiment ends on the beat.
Example 7
Here we have a half time groove with the rudiment on the '+' after beat 1 then on beat 4.
Example 8
Another half time example with the rudiment moved to different points in the bar.
TASK
- Using the 2 minute rule, get all grooves up to a tempo of at least 120bpm.
- Experiment with different kick and snare placements under each given example.
- Create new placements for the single stroke 4 then create grooves from the new idea.
- Try constructing 2 and 4 bar grooves based on this concept.
- Apply to concept to a longer phrase either as the main groove or as a variation on the groove.
- Try using other parts of the kit for the right hand, don't feel restricted to playing the single stroke four on one voice. In fact it doesn't even need to be on a cymbal.
