First steps to improve your time / groove behind the drumkit.

Improve your groove.

Over the years I’ve wondered, analysed and pontificated over my time keeping against of my own feelings of ‘groove’ sureness behind the kit.

I’ve consistently tried to pinpoint why I think about it so much, how I can improve it and why it matters so much to me. There are two lines of thinking for me and those are namely the words ‘Core’ and ‘Grid’.

I’m sure you’ve heard both words or uttered in some shape or form even if they’ve been referred to by different terminology.

CORE

‘Core’ for me refers to where your root or centre seem to be when you’re playing groove (or otherwise for that matter).

For this moment in time, let’s only assume we are talking groove as opposed to soloing or playing chops.

Which element out of say kick, snare or hats feel like the ‘root’ or ‘centre’ of the the thing you’re playing?

Is it the kick, is it the snare drum (backbeat) that’s the root or is it your hi hat? More importantly, if you reduced those three elements down to only two out of three, could you still play that groove confidently? Do you see where I’m going with this?

Take the hats away and does the groove fall apart? Take the snare away and does the groove fall apart, take the kick away and how does it feel? I regular ask my students to play all three combinations reducing kick, snare and hats down to two elemets only.

Now I’m not saying that those separate parts aren’t designed to be glued together, because essentially they are ‘one’. If played on their own though, do they groove and do they seem to have a sense of purpose?

I ask myself that question all the time as I scan from limb to limb to check to see whether or not each part feels good. Do they blend or fuse well together and do they have an overall sense of purpose as a sum of the parts?

My concept of ‘Knowing your Core’ is possibly slightly clinical but it works for me because at the end of the day, I imagine I’m the one on the dance floor or in the audience being memerised by the band. Essentially me, dancing to me!

GRID

The ‘Grid’ refers to the type of counting / feeling of underlying subdivisions or pulse that you’re feeling in your body and that the music seems to be dictating.

So for example you’re playing at a med / slow 80bpm tempo and guided by the genre or style of music, you may want to count or feel 1/4, 1/8th or 1/16th notes.

The first fill you play will likely give you a very strong indication of which ‘Grid’ you should be playing on top of if you haven’t already worked it out.

For example, playing 1 + 3 on the kick, 2 + 4 on the snare with 1/8th notes on the hats and only play 8th note type fills, counting in 1/8th notes should be sufficient right?

Perhaps though counting in 1/16th notes may give you more confidence because of the extra subdivisions you can count / feel.

The second scenario could be that if you’re playing the same groove but with 1/4 notes in the hats along with 1/4 note fills, that a 1/4th note ‘Grid’ will be enough. The alternative could be to count 1/8th notes instead of 1/4 notes to give you that extra security. Something for you to try out when you’re next playing.

My rule of thumb is that my Grid is normally automatically set to whatever the smallest note I find my self playing, whether that’s groove wise or fill wise.

So the concept of the ‘Grid’ is essentially setting up something that will help you to count the spaces or gaps between the actual notes that you play. A huge one for me!

SUMMARY

These are two of my main time concepts.

‘Core’ and ‘Grid’ have helped me to both home in on my sense of groove and improve my time keeping. I hope this helps you to explore your own ‘Core’ and ‘Grid’ and improve your confidence with time.