For this groove concept you will be displacing the snare by a 16th note, like you did in our Level 1 Snare Displacement Lesson. In this case you will be moving from the 2 and 4 counts to the 'a' count before it. This is a cool concept as a standard groove but it works equally well as a variation for a two bar pattern or as a fill idea for larger phrases.
For this lesson you will be covering three ideas, one where only beat 2 is displaced, one where only beat 4 is displaced and one where both snares are moved. For each idea you will be shown various groove patterns using the concept and at the end of the lesson a short piece has been given.
Displacing Beat 2
Let's start by displacing just beat 2 in a standard common time groove. A simple version of this is shown below. Note that a dotted eighth note is used on beat 1 rather than rests.
Spend some time familiarizing yourself with the new snare placement then have a go at some of the variations below. Patterns where a kick is played on the '+' after beat 1 have an interesting sound. The displaced snare also frees up beat 2 to have a kick on its own. Experiment with these ideas further.
Variation 1
Variation 2
Variation 3
Variation 4
Displacing Beat 4
Next let's try displacing just beat 4. These patterns will be very similar only the displacement happens in the second half of the bar.
Spend some time familiarizing yourself with the new snare placement then have a go at some of the variations below. Like with the previous version, patterns where a kick is played on the '+' after beat 3 have an interesting sound. The displaced snare also frees up beat 4 to have a kick on its own.
Variation 1
Variation 2
Variation 3
Variation 4
Displacing Beats 2 And 4
Now let's displace both backbeat snares.
Spend some time familiarizing yourself with the new snare placement then have a go at some of the variations below.
Variation 1
Variation 2
Variation 3
Variation 4
TASKS
- Learn the grooves above up to a tempo of at least 140bpm.
- Create further variations on these patterns.
- Create some 4 bar phrases where this concept is applied. Experiment with different uses of this idea within the phrase.
Example Piece
The short piece below demonstrates the practical application of this concept.