Learn Drums Lesson - The Shuffle Groove Video Lecture - Learn how to Play

this lesson is all about learning to
play a shuffle groove a shuffle is a
beat that has a bouncy swinging type of
feel and is found in various forms from
African and Irish traditional music to
blues jazz and rock and roll to name a
few
it's a rhythm that has its roots in
triplets so as we've been looking at
them in previous studies we can use
triplets as our starting point in
learning to play a shuffle here's an
exercise on the snare that is made up of
1 bar of eighth note triplets followed
by a bar of shuffle you'll see quite
quickly that a shuffle is just a bar of
triplets with the middle note missing so
if you're counting one triplet two
triplet three triplet four triplet
we'll get a shuffle by taking out all
the trips out of our account or if you
find that difficult try just counting 1
2 3 1 2 3 1 2 3 1 2 3 and just make sure
you play all the one and threes but not
any of the twos here goes and at first
just play this exercise with your lead
hand as this will ensure you're not
playing the exercise too fast exercise 1
1 2 3 4
[Music]
okay now you got the hang of that let's
just move your lead hand over to the
hi-hat and play the same thing again be
sure to really concentrate on your
counting of groups of three it's a
common mistake to flatten out the
shuffle so it becomes less bouncy which
will lead to a more straight eighth note
feel exercise two one two three four
once you've mastered a nice bouncy
triplet sounding shuffle we'll get rid
of the bar of triplets and just play a
bar of shuffle on the hi-hat with your
lead hand but this time we'll add some
bass drum and snare drum I find the most
helpful count to play this shuffle at
medium temples one a 2 R 3 R 4 R 1 R 2 R
3 R 4 remember to keep counting as it
will help you develop your inner clock
one other thing you got to look out for
here is to make sure that the snare and
the hi-hat and the bass drum and the
hi-hat
all lock together in unison listen out
for accidental flam's or farming this is
when your bass drum or snare drum does
not line up with the height exercise
three one two three four okay now we can
try to play some variations of the
shuffle exercise four one two three four
[Music]
exercise five one two three four
[Music]
exercise six one two three four exercise
seven one two three four
[Music]
exercise eight one two three four
[Music]
exercise nine one two three four
[Music]
exercise ten one two three four the
shuffle is a groove you should learn to
play with a very triplet II feel many
drummers spend so much time practicing
straight eighth notes and so little time
playing shuffles that when they do have
to play one it comes out flat and
feeling stiff your shuffle should have a
rolling rounded sound to it and should
feel smooth bouncy and consistent
practice shuffles are really slow
temples too as this will affect the way
you play faster tempos also it's almost
as if that by playing the exercises
slowly you are storing the information
in your limbs as you practice
[Music]
for further development of your shuffle
how about playing a trained beat type
shuffle on the snare one two three four
[Music]
all play half open hi-hat one two three
four or why not try a TomTom shuffle a
one two three four good luck and bye for
now