Hit Hat playing 8th notes

This helps propel the beat along, and there’s plenty of songs that use this exact beat. The hi-hat is now playing 8 times in a measure.  In other words it’s playing 8th notes.  Each note is 1/8th of the measure.  If you’ve heard the word “quantize” we could say: this grid is quantized to eighth notes, that’s the smallest division of the beat allowed.  

Quantize: Aligning your beat with the grid.

Chopping up the grid makes it easier to read.

When we chop up each beat into smaller parts it’s called subdividing.

This beat as is, is used in a lot of songs but we can make it more useful by adding some extra notes in the snare and bass drum too. Before we do that, lets modify the grid to make it easier to read. We’ll put a dotted line between each beat to divide it in half. We now have a space in between beats 1 and 2 which we’ll call the “&”, and we’ll color that gray to make it easier to see.

Drum grid divided into 8ths

So we now can put notes on 1 and the & of 1.Just to show you, I’ll put a bass drum beat on 1 and a snare drum on the & of 1, like this:

Bass drum on 1, snare on & of 1.

This is very similar to the drum grid used in most software programs.I know this can be a little confusing at first, but I’ll label everything to make it easier. As I go on I’ll stop labeling as much, because I’ll assume you’ve read this part. Don’t skip it, if you want to interact with other musicians or dissect beats, or even use any music software, you’ll need to know this. If it didn’t take any effort, everybody would be doing it.

Adding Momentum to the Beat.

So lets go back to our beat above.  Here’s what we’ve got on our new grid, the hi-hat is moving along playing 8th notes, but the bass drum is still playing on the strong beats, 1 and 3.

Basic Rock Beat

So lets use those &’s and put a bass drum note just before beat 3, on the & of 2, like so:

Bass drum on & of 2.

This note provides a little momentum into beat three. Imagine you were pushing a heavy couch, you’d rock back to give yourself a little momentum before the big push. That’s what putting notes in between the beats does. It gives you momentum into the next note and pushes the beat along. That’s important to you because you might want your beat to hang back and be mellow or aggressive and driving. That “in between” note also give emphasis to what comes after it. That bass drum on beat three will stick out a little more to your ears.Ok, lets do something similar with the snare. Lets put a note on the & of 4.

This gives a little momentum back to beat 1. It drives 4 into 1.

Ok, now you’ve seen three simple examples of how putting notes in between the beats can change the momentum and feel of the basic beat.  You can mix and match these patterns within the measure itself, or within the song.  A drummer will often add a few extra notes here and there, putting a snare on the & of 4, or maybe as bass drum on the & of 4.  This stops the beat from being static and can make the music flow better.  

Here’s an audio example of our pattern strung together in different ways. 

You can get a lot of mileage out of just what I’ve covered here, in fact that whole pattern contains all the pieces we’ve gone over so far. So in part three, I’ll show you how to stretch your mileage by moving some of these notes between beats and between drums.

Things to remember:

1. When you divide a beat in half, that second part of the beat is called the “&”
2. Putting notes on the & can add emphasis to what comes next, and pushes the beat along.
3. Mix and match one measure patterns to create interest or add emphasis.