Hello and welcome to a fun lesson breaking down a half time shuffle.  There are loads of variations but for today we are going take one version and break it down so that we can master this iconic and fun groove Hopefully you have already worked through the hihat accents series already, but if not I really recommend going back and getting at least the first three mastered.   1) In this first exercise we are simply playing a shuffle in the hihat.  Make sure your dynamics are accurate and consistent. 2) Next up we add in bass and snares to create a standard shuffle.  This is more about focusing on the right hand and making sure your dynamics are on point.  There are no ghost notes just yet so focus on playing a clear and strong snare on beats 2 and 4. 3) The first ghost note we are going to add is the middle triplet.  Concentrate on getting the volume nice and low whilst keeping the accent pattern in the right hand correct and consistent.   4) Now we add in the third triplet partial as well as the second with our left hand.  This can be challenging, especially trying to maintain the correct dynamics.  Take your time until this feels smooth. 5) In this exercise both of our hands are playing a shuffle in unison.  However, I want you to keep the left hand dynamic low throughout.  It is much easier to add volume then take it away.  Work on the independence until you can play this smoothly. 6) In our penultimate exercise we have the full hands pattern for this particular groove.  Please not that the snare on the downbeat of 3 is an accented snare.  7) The full groove.  We have just added three bass drums to this groove and it sounds great.     https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kTIAT3G3Qro&feature=youtu.be   I hope you enjoyed that lesson, see you next time.  

Hello and welcome to the fifth part of our hihat accent series.  This time we are playing16th note bass drum patterns with and offbeat hihat.   1) First up we are just playing a bass drum on every 8th note that does not have a snare.  Really try and lock in and relax. 2) Next up we displace the bass drums one 16th so that we have a bass on every ‘e’ and ‘a’. 3-6) In the next four exercises we are taking two 16th notes and displacing them in a grid format.  If a bass falls with a snare, I have dropped the bass drum.  You can obviously go back through all of these and put the bass drums ‘back in’ if you like but I find this a more appropriate way of practicing for the most part.  We start with ‘1e’, then ‘e+’, then ‘+a’ and finally ‘1a’. 7) In the final exercise we are playing examples 3-6 as a continuous loop.  The advantage of this is we also get two occasions of three bass drums in a row, starting both with the hihat (bar 3 to 4) and also in the gap (bar 4 to 1) https://youtu.be/WJmBkDOMtbM I hope you enjoyed that lesson.  Join me next time for something a little different.  

Hello and welcome to the fourth part of our hihat accent series.  This time we are adding in 16th note bass drum patterns.     1) First up we are just playing a bass drum on every 8th note that does not have a snare.  Really try and lock in and relax. 2) Next up we displace the bass drums one 16th so that we have a bass on every ‘e’ and ‘a’. 3-6) In the next four exercises we are taking two 16th notes and displacing them in a grid format.  If a bass falls with a snare, I have dropped the bass drum.  You can obviously go back through all of these and put the bass drums ‘back in’ if you like but I find this a more appropriate way of practicing for the most part.  We start with ‘1e’, then ‘e+’, then ‘+a’ and finally ‘1a’. 7) In the final exercise we are playing examples 3-6 as a continuous loop.  The advantage of this is we also get two occasions of three bass drums in a row, starting both with the hihat (bar 3 to 4) and also in the gap (bar 4 to 1)   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qLewQ_tTtUU&feature=youtu.be I hope you enjoyed that lesson.  Next time we will have a look at the off beat hihats

Hello and welcome to the third part of our hihat accent series.  This time we are playing 7/4! We are going to combine the feel from the previous two lessons into a great hihat accent exercise. So we have taken exercises 2-6 from the previous two lessons (Hihat accents part 1 & 2).  If you haven't already worked through those lessons, please do that before starting these.   1) First up it is the basic groove, from example 2 of the previous lessons transposed into 7/4.  All we’ve done is cut off the last 1/8 note from each and then play them back to back.  I love working through the accents like this as we not only get to work on accents that seem as if they’re on both the down and upbeat but we also get to work on 7/4!   2) In the second example, we have added the extra bass drum.  Please note that we have now lost the extra snare on the “and” of four.  If you struggled with that snare in the previous lessons, try adding a snare to the “and” of two and to the downbeat of six.  3) In 3, it is the grove from example 2 of the previous lessons.   4) In the final exercise, we have added in the ghost notes. Make sure you really focus on the dynamics of all your limbs. https://youtu.be/xlDkoKm9DEQ I hope you enjoyed that lesson.  Next time we will dive into 16th bass drums.