This isn’t something you need to master in order to program realistic drums, but you do need to understand the forms that these intuitive patterns might take beyond the elementary ‘kick, snare, kick, snare’. He or she places them in the context of the rest of the track, in which - never forget - the drums play an underpinning, supporting role. Rather than consciously calculating the placement of kick, snare and hi-hat notes while playing, the trained drummer ‘feels’ where they should go. Those are the fundamentals, but of course there’s much more to it than that. Congratulations – you’re drumming! Feeling the groove Don’t worry about the left foot - just repeat ad nauseam. Try it now on a desk or your thighs: tap out eight evenly-spaced hits with your right hand, simultaneously tapping your right foot on hits 1 and 5 and your left hand on hits 3 and 7. The top hi-hat cymbal is struck with the right hand (crossing over the left), while the left hand hits the snare. Most tracks will see the drummer spend the vast majority of their time playing a groove, which, generally speaking, involves nailing the backbeat on the kick and snare, and tapping out a metronomic eighth-note ‘tick’ on the hi-hats (known as ‘riding’).Īssuming the drummer is right-handed, the right foot plays the kick drum, while the left foot controls the hi-hat. Most of the action takes place on the kick, snare and hats, while the toms and cymbals are used for accenting and fills. The drum kit comprises a kick drum, a snare drum and a pair of hi-hats, plus a variable number of tom toms and cymbals (usually two or three toms and four or five cymbals, although the only limits are space and reach). Real drum kits can reach impressive proportions – but of course, your virtual kit can be even bigger. With all that in mind, then, it’s time to take a drum lesson… What’s more, knowing how drummers play their drums isn’t just useful for programming live-sounding parts: even your drum machine patterns will benefit from a true understanding of what the human ear has semi-consciously come to expect from contemporary percussion elements. The vast majority of modern music adheres to this straightforward structure, which is good news for programmers looking to emulate the real thing.
It’s that fabulous 4/4 backbeat, with the kick drum emphasising the first and third beats (either directly or by implication), and the snare on the second and fourth, embellished by incidental grace notes and fills. If you’ve programmed electronic beats before, you’ll be glad to hear that the rhythmic paradigm that governs dance music and electronica is equally dominant in pop, rock and most other genres in which you’d find a live drummer. So, if you really want to take full ownership of your beats, building them yourself from the ground up is the way to go.
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