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Now that I've provided
you with a set of four basic loops,
you should be able to find some nice
drum rhythms from there. But there is
another additional piece of
information, that I should give you
before you're on you're way creating
your own. I'd like to present to you
two ways of playing a measure. A
combination of these two can also be
used, and as I repeatly say, no rule
in music is golden, but it is good to
learn some rules before you can break
them. So there are basically two
ways of filling in the measure.
In reggae, a measure
is 4/4. This means, there are four
beats or counts in a measure. In the
steppers beat, a bass drum hit is
played on every count. So we divide a
measure in 4 equal parts, named after
their count: one, two, three, four.
But if you would be playing only on
the whole counts of a measure, then
your rhythm wouldn't really be that
interesting. Therefore, like the
measures are divided in four counts,
also the counts are divided into
smaller sections. It's the way of
dividing the counts, that can make a
whole difference to your rhythm. They
are both equally used within reggae,
and I would like to present them both
to you in this chapter. I'm using a
130 BPM One Drop rhythm in this
chapter.
In the previous
chapter I asked you to take a special
notice to the bass drum. For the
examples I will use in this chapter, I
would like to ask you, to take some
notion to the Hi Hat. The two
different kinds are called Straight or
Swing. Here they are:
STRAIGHT
In a straight measure,
you dived a count by four notes. So
you'll have 16 notes in one measure.
To keep it a bit simple, in the next
example I divide the measure into 8
different notes. As you can see, there
is a Hi Hat hit precisely between
every two counts.
LISTEN: EXAMPLE0007.MP3
| EXAMPLE0007.MID
The rhythm is straight
on. It is one straight line. You can
also divide the measure into 16, or
even 32 different notes but I will
elaborate on these things later on.
Let's take a look at the second
rhythm:
SWING
In swing, the measures
are not divided into 16 parts, but
into 12 part. The time between counts
are not four, but three. In a way, you
could say it's a 3/4 measure within a
4/4/ measure. A One Drop in
traditional swing is programmed like
in the next example:
LISTEN: EXAMPLE0008.MP3
| EXAMPLE0008.MID
As you can see, you
can't really speak of a straight line
here. The Hi Hat hits between the
counts are driven towards the right.
Like I didn't fill in the 2nd and the
4th count in the straight rhythm, I
didn't fill in the second one in the
swing rhythm.
Many artists have a
preference for either swing or
straight. Many also use both, but
unmistakably there is a big difference
in the two types. Because the straight
rhythm is so straight and solid, it's
very powerful. And because the swing
is not straight, it gives a more
danceable feeling to the rhythm. |
