Absolute Beginners

Day 3 – Grooves

Welcome back!

Today is Day 3 and we talk about counting to 4 (and 3). Simple is good. 

1. Beats and measures

To avoid counting to 2019 and beyond, we cut up music in equal bits of time called bars or measures, and then we do the same to measures by cutting them up into beats.

And THEN we take the beats in a measure and call them the beat.
The most common beat out there is the ONE-two-Three-four beat — 4 beats per measure.

Just like the chords in a key, all beats in a measure were not created equal.

The strongest beat is always the first one, because that’s the easiest way to know a new measure begins (and to keep track of the passage of time). It’s basically the only beat in techno music 😉

In the 4-beat measure, beat 3 is also relatively strong, but less so than beat 1.

Beats 2 and 4 are the weak beats.

To feel that, count to four by stomping your feet on beats 1 and 3 and clapping your hands on beats 2 and 4:  

STOMP    clap     Stomp     clap

That’s what your drummer would do too by kicking the bass drum and hitting the snare.

Queen, on the other hand, would stomp twice on beats 1 and 3 (and clap on 2 and 4) but that’s just because they want to rock you.

Or maybe they knew about…

2. Subdivision of beats

Yes, to transcend simplicity, we introduce complexity.

We subdivide each beat in the measure by 2, 3, 4, or multiples of these. (It’s rare to subdivide by more than 8 though. You’re more likely to find measures with a strange number of beats – like 5 or 7).

Thus, if we subdivide each beat in a 4-beat measure by 2, we get:

 1 and 2 and 3 and 4 and

If we subdivide by 3, we get:

1 and a  2  and a  3 and a  4 and a

And if we subdivide by 4 we get the Eye of the Tiger (:

1 e and a  2 e and a  3  e and a  4 e and a

There are other systems of naming these subdivisions, but the principle stays the same — they are equal parts of the beat they subdivide and weaker than the weak beats.

All Brian May did when he came up with the groove for We Will Rock You was to add an extra kick/stomp on the ‘and’ of beat 1 and 3:

1	and	2	and	3	and	4	and
Stomp	Stomp	Clap		Stomp	Stomp	Clap

To make your own groove, all you have to do is experiment with moving the kicks and the claps around the boxes, adding or subtracting a kick or clap here and there, etc. 

The kick on beat 1 will be the last to move, if ever, because it is really the anchor of the groove, but if you really want to push the boundaries, even that is possible.

You can also replace the kicks and claps with any percussive (or other) sound and of course, you can have more than 2 such sounds going on at the same time — it’s just that kicks and claps come naturally because we have them in our immediate bodies’ toolbox.

Try reading the following grooves:

And how about these, where we have subdivision by 4?

All these examples use a 4-feel groove as a foundation, but if you want to try something more waltzy, go for a 3-feel groove, in which the only strong beat is beat 1 and everything else is varying degrees of weak:

ONE two three  ONE two three

1  and  2 and 3 and  1 and 2 and 3 and

and my personal favourite

1 and a  2 and a  3 and a

 which with the right accents can even mutate into an irregular 9/8 time (2+2+2+3).

3. Syncopation

Syncopation is a funky topic, but oh so important.

Syncopation means playing a note (from the groove or from the melody) just before or after the beat it would normally fall on (usually one of the main beats).

In this way, the beat in question is anticipated or delayed and the groove falls over forwards in exciting new ways.

The riff of Smoke on the Water by Deep Purple is just one great (and simple!) example.

In the second-to-last example above, the first ‘clap’ is syncopated.

In the last example, it’s the second ‘kick’ and ‘claps’ 1, 2 and 4.

4. Funky resources

For a useful exercise on hitting a particular subdivision of the beat, try Anthony Wellington’s rhythm yardstick.

And if you like thinking outside the box, here’s a nice circular look at grooves. 

And if you dislike Word tables as much as I do or if you are as yet inept at Fruity Loops or drum machines, definitely check out Groove Pizza, which allows you to play around with those kicks, claps and more.

5. Today’s challenge

Come up with 3 grooves of varying funkiness.

Get your Kicks (and Claps) on Route 60 sticks!

As always, feel free to comment below and I’ll see you tomorrow for Day 4 — Song structures.