15th October 2019 Wil Wainwright

Half Time Shuffle Breakdown

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.  

 

 

I hope you enjoyed that lesson, see you next time.

 

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