5 SYNCOPATION
5.1 Adding spice to your grooves with more bass drums
If you listen to the songs I have listed above and in particular in the 8th note rock and pop grooves, you will quickly hear that there are more snare hits and bass drum hits in the these songs than the basic 8th note rock and pop grooves I showed you earlier.
They have the common 8th note rock and pop beat at their core, but the drummer or drum programmer has added extra snare and bass drum
strokes to the groove. This is called many things but in musical terms it is called “Syncopation”.
A syncopated rhythm is a rhythm where a beat falls with equal emphasises in between the main beats. In our case, of the 8th note rock and pop beat, the main beats of 1,2,3 and 4 are the main beats. These are the beats that are the pulse of the music.
These beats are called the “on” beats and the beats in between marked up by the “+” sign are called the “off” beats.
All styles of music use syncopation in some way or another to make the groove more interesting and to fit with other parts of the song played by the guitar, bass, keyboards and of course the vocalist. I hear syncopation in pretty much all music styles: Rock, Jazz, Soul, RnB, Pop, , But two of the biggest genres that use syncopation are Funk and Hip Hop.
Funk and Hip Hop are probably the two biggest users of syncopation. To get a feel for this style you need to go and listen to James Brown’s music and the drummers of James Brown including Clayton Filliyau, Nat Kendrick, John “Jabo” Stacks, and Clyde Stubblefield. These guys laid down some of the most famous funk tracks ever recorded Cold Sweat, Pappa got a brand new pig bag and the all time classic’s Get Up I Feel Like a Sex Machine and Funky Drummer.
Hip Hop is musical decendant of Funk and Soul and so many of today's great hip hop grooves have come from the "Funk" drummers of the 60's and 70's. To hear some great hip hop grooves with syncopation listen to albums such as Justin Timberlake's Future Sex/Love Sounds, The Roots,
5 Syncopation
The History of Hip Hop. Just a little word of warning some the of the lyrics can by rude and to be honest very rude in some cases, so check the warning labels on the albums before you buy for yourself or your children if rude material is not for you.
Another great use of syncopation is by the Red Hot Chilli Peppers with Chad Smith on drums. The RHCP's have a rock funk style but with some hip hop in some songs too. However, humble as ever Chad says “I’m just
copying beats from the great soul and funk drummers of the 60’s and guys like Ian Paice of Deep Purple and John Bonham of Led Zeppelin”.
Now leaving the history lesson behind, very briefly and for your
information there are in fact “8x8x8x8” different ways of playing an 8th note rock groove, so you should never in threoy run out of 8th note grooves to play. Also, to learn them will keep you going for a while, like forever if you wanted to play all those permutations.
But lets be serious and thankfully due to that fact most people like some consistency in there grooves to be able to dance to them, the 8th note groove tends to keep a constant hi-hat and the snare on the 2 and 4 and the bass on the 1 and 3 and variations around that common groove pattern.
It is the variations around the common 8th note groove pattern that gives us the syncopation that spices and funks up our grooves.
So to get you going for now and playing similar and in some cases the same grooves you may have heard on your favourite songs here are 6 very
common bass drum variation for you to learn and to help spice and funk up your 8th Note beats as a beginner for now.
As always start slow and be precise and then only start to speed up!!
5.1.1Bass Drum Variation 1
701 - 60BPM – 8
thNote Rock Beat - Bass Drum V1 702 - 120BPM – 8
thNote Rock Beat - Bass Drum V1
The main beat occurs on the 1 2 3 and 4 beats and this is where the pulse of the beat is.
I have added an extra beat with the bass drum on the 1+. This make the groove syncopated as I have explained above as you are playing a bass drum stroke on the “off” beat with equal emphasis to the “on” beats. It is in my humble opinion one of the most used variations you will hear in rock,pop and hip hop music.
You will hear this and the following 5 bass drum variation on hundreds of 8th Note rock and pop grooves, Quarter note grooves and Sixteenth note grooves.
1 + 2 + 3 + 4 +
Right Hand/Hi Hat
X X X X X X X X
Left
Hand/Snare Drum
X X
Right Foot/Bass Drum
X X X
Left Foot/Hi Hat Pedal
5.1.2Bass Drum Variation 2
Here we play the two bass drum hits on both the 1 + and 3 +
703 - 60BPM – 8
thNote Rock Beat - Bass Drum V2 704 - 120BPM – 8
thNote Rock Beat - Bass Drum V2
1 + 2 + 3 + 4 +
Right Hand/Hi Hat
X X X X X X X X
Left
Hand/Snare Drum
X X
Right Foot/Bass Drum
X X X X
Left Foot/Hi Hat Pedal
5.1.3Bass Drum Variation 3
1 + 2 + 3 + 4 +
Right Hand/Hi Hat
X X X X X X X X
Left
Hand/Snare Drum
X X
Right Foot/Bass Drum
X X X
Left Foot/Hi Hat Pedal
705 - 60BPM – 8
thNote Rock Beat - Bass Drum V3 706 - 120BPM – 8
thNote Rock Beat - Bass Drum V3
Here we don’t play the bass drum on beat 3, but instead move it to the + of 3. To start with this will probably feel strange so take it easy and slowly and count out aloud to help ensure you get the correct co-ordination.
5.1.4Bass Drum Variation 4
1 + 2 + 3 + 4 +
Right Hand/Hi Hat
X X X X X X X X
Left
Hand/Snare Drum
X X
Right Foot/Bass Drum
X X
Left Foot/Hi Hat Pedal
707 - 60BPM – 8
thNote Rock Beat - Bass Drum V4 708 - 120BPM – 8
thNote Rock Beat - Bass Drum V4
We get another syncopated beat.This beat is the beat used in the song Miss Jackson by Outkast. It is what gives it that cool little funky feel ☺
5.1.5Bass Drum Variation 5
1 + 2 + 3 + 4 +
Right Hand/Hi Hat
X X X X X X X X
Left
Hand/Snare Drum
X X
Right Foot/Bass Drum
X X X
Left Foot/Hi Hat Pedal
709 - 60BPM – 8
thNote Rock Beat - Bass Drum V5 710 - 120BPM – 8
thNote Rock Beat - Bass Drum V5
This and the next variation are starting to get more “funky” as we play more bass drum strokes on the off beat
5.1.6Bass Drum Variation 6
This may be a bit advanced for you at this stage but I thought I would point this out to you with this variation you are being to get into the area of rhythmic illusions. You see the bass drum on the + of 4 followed by the bass drum on the one gives the sense that the bass drum part has moved backward by one 8th note.
To know where you are with this groove you have to count hard so that you keep the snare drum hits solid on the 2 and 4 which provide the core
reference for this groove else you will drift and end up feeling that the true first beat on the bass drum is on the + of 4 and a train wreck of a groove will arrive for you and the band
5.1.7Snare Drum Syncopation
Now it is not just the bass drum we can move from its “normal” place if we where to play the snare drum on the “+” of four as follows we would be creating a syncopated beat too.
713 - 60BPM – 8
thNote Rock Beat - Snare Drum V1 714 - 90BPM – 8
thNote Rock Beat - Snare Drum V1
The snare would now fall on an off beat and that is another common syncopation. The movement of the snare drum to the + of four was most famously used by Clyde Stubbefield on the drum part of the James Brown Classic “Coldsweat”. He does lots of other things too but this is a real signature part of this groove.
715 - Coldsweat Groove
Chad Smith, also, uses a lot of snare drum syncopation. Songs like Californication and Under the Bridge.
Here is a modern use of syncopation on the song Clocks by Coldplay. Here rather than the bass drum moving too much the snare is played on beats 1, 2+ and 4. The general tempo is quite fast but here I have played it slower and then faster
1 + 2 + 3 + 4 +
Right
Hand/Hi Hat
X X X X X X X X
Left
Hand/Snare Drum
X X
Right Foot/Bass Drum
X X
Left Foot/Hi Hat Pedal
1 + 2 + 3 + 4 +
Right
Hand/Hi Hat
X X X X X X X X
Left
Hand/Snare Drum
X X X
Right Foot/Bass Drum
X X
Left Foot/Hi Hat Pedal
716 - Clocks by Coldplay beat played at 60BPM 717 - Clocks by Coldplay beat played at 120BPM
You will hear syncopated beats in lots and lots of music sometimes in a very subtle manner and sometimes much more explicitly.
Syncopation can move on from here which I cover a bit later.