How To Play Any Drum Beat #3 — Hi-hat & Ride Patterns
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This lesson is part three in the How To Play Any Drum Beat series. If you haven’t done so already, check out part one and part two where we looked at bass drum patterns. Today we’re looking at ride line patterns (aka hi-hat or ride patterns).
The right hi-hat pattern can really change a groove. There are a couple of factors that are going to influence your choice of which pattern to use where. The first being tempo, the second being feel.
If a song has a slow tempo but feels like it’s lacking pace semi-quavers/ sixteenth notes might be a good choice. If a song has a fast tempo you might want to opt for playing crotchets/ quarter notes, which will be punchier. In my experience the best thing to do is experiment. Try different patterns and see which best supports the music. There is quite often more than one “right” choice.
Here’s how to practice the worksheet:
Choose a bass and snare pattern from part one or two in this series. Pick something simple to start off with. Here’s an example which combines exercises 1, 18 and 6 from part one.
Now try playing your bass drum pattern with each ride line pattern on the worksheet. A-H for grooves that use crotchets, quavers and semi-quavers (quarter, eight and sixteenth notes), I-J for triplet grooves. Here’s our example with A-D.
If you aren’t sure what a pattern should sound like. Try making the pattern in Groove Scribe. Here’s a groove template to get your started.
Now run through points 1-3 with another bass and snare pattern. If you keep this up, working your way through all the exercises in parts one and two you’ll be able to play a lot of drum beats!
That’s all for today. I’ll update this post with a link to part 4 in the near future.
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