Transcripts
1. Course Introduction: Hey, there guys has
gone into x star here and today I am just telling you guys it's
a brand new course out on shuffle grooves. So it just gets you into
shuffle grooves brand new. If you're new to this
kind of concept, to these kind of
bouncing things. This course is for you. We're gonna go into
a lot of detail on exactly what makes up a
shuffle, why we do it. I used to teach shuffles is just an old play,
a normal grief. You do that, make it
bouncing one. And 2.3. I used to teach it that way and people kinda got
the concepts and a lot of people
just play that if the whereabouts you
shuffle the song, they've got something
they can play. But in this course
we're gonna get down to exactly what a shuffle is. I'm gonna go get, get into
a little bit of the theory. I'm not gonna go
too heavy into it, but enough so that you
understand the shuffle. You're able to kinda,
kinda take it apart, add your own kind of
ghost notes, bass drums, snare drums and things with into that and give
you a real kind of foundation and
what they shuffle grooves are all about. And it's really kind
of key components of every Drama should have one of these kinda within a toolbox have a couple of shuffle
grooves that they know well, that they're able to manipulate, do stuff with so that you're not just you might
be uncomfortable drama playing straight
grooves on hi-hat and 1.2. And comfortable with that, you've got loader fills and different kinds of variations. Then all of sudden you hear shuffling kind of bouncy song. And you're like, Okay, I've just got this and
you're not able to do fills or do anything with it. So this is what this
course is all about. We're gonna go into a lot of
detail and I hope you will join me and it's available
to members right now. Go check it out.
2. Shuffle Preparation: Hey guys, how's it going? And welcome to the
shuffle grooves course. Today we're gonna be talking all about shuffles.
What are shuffles? How are they useful? Why
do we need to know them? What are they? And
we're going to get all of that into that today. So I hope you will
enjoy the rest of this course and it will
help you get better at this weird concept that a lot people do seem
to struggle with. But I've taught, taught shuffles
and kind of swing time, hundreds and hundreds
of students. So I feel like I've got an
idea of how to communicate this concept in a way that
you guys will understand. So now I used to
teach shuffle grooves in that there were just
a bouncy sounding group. So if I was to do a normal
pop rock groove like base and that base. And you can play those
exact same notes, but just change the rhythm
of it to make it sound. Bounces here or swan, one and straight time. This is called
nice and straight. And then one and 2.3. And I'm playing the
exact same notes that but I'm just bouncing it. So the hi-hat part,
rather than being 1.2 and 3.4 and 1.2, 3.4, and just having that
little kind of bouncy rhythm. And usually that's enough for
people to get an idea of. Okay, I've just got a 1.2 and 3.4 have that bouncy rhythm and the songs are
built upon that. But it gives them a really
kind of nav foundation on what these kind of
shuffle things out and then they can't really
do anything with it. So I'm going to
show you guys today exactly what creates a Shuffle. What he's got to do
with triplets and kinda get you a bit more
into that and give you guys an understanding
of what's going on. It's one of these little tools. It's kinda like having a tool box and you're
doing light jobs, DIY on the house,
stuff like that. And there's just like one
tool that you missing out your Dropbox just because
it's a little bit expensive. So you're like, oh,
won't need that tool. And then there's a couple
of jobs I was like, Man, I could really do with
a socket wrench right now and you just don't have it. So shuffles are a bit like that. It takes some time and
investment to get good at these. But then when you're out
on the gig or you're playing with a bundle
with some tunes, you'll hear a song
that's like, oh, I can do, that's got a
shuffle kind of rhythm to it. And you'd be so much better prepared for the job so
it's worth the investment. So are you seeing
the notation here? I've got this has all high hats are all
done on the hi-hat. And this is just a
kinda check pattern for getting the hang of exactly
what that shuffle rhythm, as I told you, here's
your straight rhythm. And this is a shuffle rhythm. But that's not quite enough. There's one thing hearing
it. Another thing is understanding exactly
what's going on. So the first two beats
of this exercise here, on your hi-hat, you're playing
two groups of triplets. You're gonna be playing
one and 2.1 triplet, triplet of two groups of 312312. So that's your triplet time. And you can see in the
second half of this, you've got two shuffled rhythms. And you can see
they're very similar. But the ones in the second half, you can see there's
only two hi-hats. And in the middle you've got a little squiggle,
that's a rest. So you're playing nothing there. So the first half you're
playing, think of it like this, 123123, and the second half, you're just going 1313. We have a gap on the two. It's all a shuffle is, is a triplet rhythm with the middle note missing
data. That's all it is. That's always the first half, one triplet to triplet. And then the second half, three, look for, let say three, trip, let four, trip. But it's getting the hang of
putting that gap in there. The other way you could
think of it is just missing the 212-31-2312 3 123-123-1313, and try and get
the hang of that. So it's one thing that you
guys might just be watching. They're away from
the drum kit like, Okay, I think I've
got that down. I do want you to play
this with me, okay. Even if you just kinda tapping away just to really
muscle memory thing, you want to be able to just
feel that shuffle rhythm. And again, playing through this pretty standard
exercise is going to massively help that for the actual groove exercises that are coming
later in the course. So we're gonna play it together. We're gonna do, we're gonna
do all of these exercises, 60 BPM and 120 bpm. Like say some of you guys
might find this really easy. But it's all about
the understanding. Even if you can
play these groups, I want you to understand
the stuff I'm gonna be speaking and kind of
putting into your brain. That's the stuff that's going to help you when we get onto some much more advanced shuffle grooves of
which there are many. And you want to have this
absolute down 60 BPM. And we're just gonna be going
one triplet, triplet 34123. Here we go. Again, marine triplet time. So you get the metronome 60
BPM on the quarter note. So we're gonna be going
one triplet, triplet, triplet on to 341,231.2 and 3401 and 2.34. I just let that really soak in. Sorry. It might, again, it might look like a really standard exercise, but it's tricky again,
just getting that rhythm. The tricky thing that a lot of my students
struggled with, as well as the very last note. So you've got the 3.4 and
you've got that last note, and then it starts again
straight on the next one. So you've actually
got that last hi-hat going straight into
another group of three. It's actually very
quick when you do the repeat going from
the empty the beginning. So 123401 and a 2.3 or four, R1 and R2 and R3. There's actually a lot
of notes in a row there. So that's one thing that
might catch a few people out, but really kind
of fill that gap. If you are struggling with this, again, try and get
the try and play. You can always play the rest. Do like a nut. You can have 12312313 or clicky sticks out at someone doing that
the other day to help. So they'll go 341, a 2.34. Sometimes playing the rest, even though restaurants to do nothing playing
the rest of it is nodding your head or just
feeling that beat there. That really helps you to
get the shuffled down. So I hope that's okay. And then onto a faster tempo
of 128 twice the speed. So here we got one. So again, getting the triplets, one triplet, triplet,
triplet 4.123. Here we go. There we go. So you see
that's a little bit tougher. You'll also notice
while I'm putting a little bit of an accent, 1234. And again, this is not
written in that you need to play those notes louder. But if you want to do
that, it just helps to kind of phrase that threes rather than
one-two-three, one-two-three. Want that again. And it just helps with
the motion of it and you get this nice circular
motion or an accent, then you can bounce
the sticker bit. That kind of thing can help you just kinda speed up again, check out my hand
technique courses if you want to get
more into that. So I hope you enjoyed
that one guys. Again, if you've
not quite got the 120 speed, then that's fine. You can still move on and get the first tempo of each one. Then you can come back
through the course and try at that faster tempo. So I'll see you for
exercise number two.
3. Adding the Kick and Snare: Hey guys, welcome to exercise two of our
shuffle grooves cost. This one is exactly the
same as the last exercise. Apart from we're bringing
into bass drums and snare drums and starting to
feel it like a groove. The first one was more
of a check pattern to get that triplet and
then the shuffle rhythm. So we had the 1.2 and a 3a4a1. And you'll notice there's multiple ways of
counting these triplets. You could have it
one-two-three, one-two-three, one-two-three, one-two-three. Again, you can have one triplet,
triplet, triplet, three. Little weird way to count it. Or you can have
one or 2.3 a four. That's the more kinda
traditional way of counting it, but some people counted
triplets and let it blend. But again, do what
works for you. The main thing is
you get the groove down even if you're
not counting it, just following along with what I'm doing, you'll
be able to get this. Okay, So this exercise,
same thing again, but we just put in a base drum and snare on every quarter note. So we've got 123. So that's normal group. And we're just
going to try and do that same check pattern on the hi-hat that we did
in the last exercise. But we're just kinda placing
some basis and snares. And this is, this is helping
us really get, like I say, that kind of foundation of what these shuffles
are all about. So you've got the shuffle, the triplet rhythm at the beginning,
one triplet, triplet. Now if you've looked
at 68 groups, which is like 123, phase three, which is
a really common thing. Shuffles are kind
of built off of that and you could
think of it like that. So you've got base and hi-hat, then two more hi-hats,
snare and hi-hat tumor, hi-hat base and a snare
and a 1.2 and beats 3.4. It's exactly the same
as that, but again, we're missing that
middle hi-hat, so we're going beat
three based on hi-hat. Then you've got the little
gap there, the rest. And then hi-hat and
the last triplet, snare and hi-hat together, little gap and then hi-hat. So first half, bass and snare, and then the second half, a bass, snare, bass, snare, and a base. A base and a snare
and a bass snare. That little gap you
can put in that, that's what we're looking to do. And this is getting
from a 68 groove or a triplet group
into these shuffles. I hope you guys are keeping
up with the triplet stuff. If it's a bit
confusing, let me know. I'd love to help
you out, but base, base, base and again, watch out for that very
last hi-hat note because it's then going straight
into the next bit. So you've got the four or one, so it's 01 and a 2.3 or 40
want to watch out for that. That does catch a
lot of people out. But you can see in
that second part, you've got the you've got
the hi-hat straight to the hi-hat and the snare
there pretty quick. So again, B3, little gap, hi-hat and its own
hi-hat snare drum. And that's very fast.
So you got 3a4a3a4, if I play the rest,
three or four. So that's what we're
looking out for that take your time with
this, get it right, it's worth sticking
with it because this is the foundation of the
shuffle if you're thinking, Okay, Next, this is complicated. There's a lot of theory stuff. This is really
tricky. And trust me, you will get this,
okay, stick with it. You'll probably find it easier just to play along
with me if you don't follow the theory
and understanding, just try and play the
grooves along with me from what you can
see hearing me play, it is sometimes easier
than trying to work out what's happening
with the notes. So just play along with me.
You might get the groove down and then as you
go through it again, you'll start getting the
understanding of what's happening and that's
absolutely fine, right? We're going to try to
61, 20, so here's 60. So I can feel the triplets
first day as a metronome. So we can blaze into that and
go for any speed but one, 23.4, so that's what
we're going for. 1234. Here we go. Waste and a base. A base and a snare and a base. Well done. Cool. So again, if you've got that, feel free to move on
to the next exercise. We're going to go
for 120 Now again, if this is just too fast, that's final and the others first,
you can come back to this. Even in a couple of weeks,
have a little play with the shuffle grooves
and come back and then try and get
that target tempo. Once you get to this target
tempo of one-twenty, you're about there
for these grooves. And again, when we go
into more advanced stuff, will then pick up the
speed a bit more. But this is about kinda way
you need it and you'll, you'll have it in a good place to be able
to play along with a whole bunch of different
blues songs and things. So you've got 120,
again, get your triplet, 1.2 and a 3a4123. There you have it. So please join me for
exercise three where we really start getting
into shuffles now.
4. Basic Shuffle: Hey guys, welcome
to exercise three, and this is the actual
shuffle groove. So again, this first to exercise has been
building up to this. And if you managed to
get exercise to down, you might not find
this one too tricky because it's just the second
half of the last exercise, but we're just getting into
a repetitive shuffle now. And we're going
to really try and see what it means to
get shuffled down. So I'll show you the
group first and then I'll go into a little bit
of the kind of stuff, kinda a little bit
more to do with swing, what swing is, and how we can apply that
within our shuffle. So we've got basin
hi-hat together. Then we've got the little kinda
eighth note triplet rest. And then we've got another
hi-hat on its own. So it's facing hat
and then high up. And it's snare and hat,
little rest and then hi-hat and then beats 3.4. It's the same
as it was before. So we have bass, snare, bass, snare, bass, and again, count that rest in your head. People don't give value to rest, rest to there for a reason. You have to give them the
time, okay, the rest. There needs to be silent on this beat. Okay, Don't rush it. So when you're getting
this, you might go one, rest, rest, rest, rest. As you speed it with me,
I go 123 or four or two. Before you know it, the rest
is gone and you're back to a standard group because it's the same notes as a
standard pop rock group. It's just because
you've got that gap in there and that bounce, That's
what makes it a shuffle. So bass, snare, bass, snare, and as you speed it up, you got to keep that rhythm going. And so many people
stretch it out. So before they know it,
they're in a straight time. So be really wary of that
because again and again, when I'm teaching people are
given like Zoom lessons. I'll be like, Okay,
Sound good, sounds good. Oh, you've got straight. So it's as the speeded up. So really watch out for that. You've got to give
the rest its value. That's the most
important part of this. So then that's your shuffle. 1a2a3. I'm just going to be
building on that now. Now before I move on and we
try this with the metronome, I want to explain a bit about swing and different
levels of swing. So we have the first kind
of beats or beat one. And then we have the next
hi-hat, and then we have b2. So you've got one too. But in-between now
that little hi-hat, we know it's on the
third triplet note, so we have based and up and up. But some people like to
shift around so they can, we've got the metronome optically perfect kind of shuffle that we're trying to do. But if you did want to drag
that middle note a little closer towards where the rest is and get a little bit
more like a straight group, you could. So here's it. Kinda base, a snare, base. Base, that's kinda
tense Shuffle. What I've done is I've made
the higher a little sooner. And you can make the
higher even later, closer to the snare
drum unhappy. So you could have
basin hi-hat and then leave it a little
bit of an extended gap. And then the high hat just
before the snare and hi-hat. And that gives you a really
kind of tight shuffle. So 1234123 here, Is it normal? 13 has the tight one. I want to do a three. So making it a little
bit closer together. So you don't need
to practice that, but I just wanna make you
aware of that there's different levels of shuffle. So again, we're doing
like a triplet shuffle, but you can dig into
this and make it really laid back or really
tense and rushed. There's all these
different kinds of levels of swing that
you can put in there. So that's just a little thing that we can apply a bit later, but for now, just making
you aware of that. But we'll just go for the straight kinda triplet
thing to start with. 60 BPM. Here we go. We just want to
get super comfortable with this basic shuffle
because like I said, we're going to build on it. So 60 BPM here
we've got triplet, 3.123. Here we go. There you have it set at 60 and then target temperature
120. Here we go. 1234. I have a guy, so I hope that's
all made sense and I will see you for
exercise number four.
5. Adding Kicks: Hey there guys. Right now we're on to number four
and now we're getting a little bit deeper
into these kind of shuffle grooves and we're
starting to work on variations. Now that we've got that absolutely crucial
foundation down, we can start manipulating it
and making it sound cool. So this is what's
going to be going on. You can see in the notation,
we have two bass drums now. So we're playing a
bass drum with the first hi-hat like
we always have. Then we've got our little gap, which is really important. Don't forget the gap and then
the hi-hat base drum again. So we're going to be playing
one and up and up again. If you didn't have
the gap, it's just gonna be based base, but we want a little gap
and so that'd be straight. His shuffled buck that I'm hearing that little that
little gap in the middle. And then the second
bit is the same as the normal shuffle groove, which was in the last exercise. Snare drum and high hat
together, a little gap. And then the last high app,
we're counting 1.2 and up. And then we're just
repeating that for 3.4. So base, base, base, base Snare, 1.2 and a 3.4 and up, That's the counting that
it's almost more going on in the brain and there is
a guy called them the drops, but that's the crucial
part of the truffle. Now if I was to show
you, like I said, that straight version
of this group, this is like the
pop rock version. It's just the bass, bass, snare. This is very reliant back
in the popular discourse. Base, base, base network, playing exactly
those same notes. That's the cool thing about
it, but we're just bouncing them based on their taste. Straight, shuffled. Exact same notes,
different rhythm. That's the power of rhythm,
of the power of rhythms. But it's a big thing. Keeping that going and
having that extra bass drum and that just gives
you that little dugata kinda jumps into the
snare drum there. So you've got, We used
to our downbeats, 12341, but that bass drum on the one coming just before the two makes
the two sound even Cooley. But 234. And that's what makes
it cool if you can make it really fast shuffle where you've got that
little tight timing. So 101 to say accidental,
really quite cool. So, yeah, so that's
the whole kind of extra bass drum
or a shuffle things. So let's try this
group at 61, 20 BPM. Good luck. Again. The troubleshooting
tip here is that base. Now, if you're struggling
to get that quick, you've got the the two quick
hi-hats. It takes some work. I'm just going to snap to that. Another way of
thinking about this. I said, we're gonna do it with a click and I've got
off on a tangent. But I know some people
do struggle with this. The way you could think
about it is tricky thing with this is starting on
the one you got 12341. If you're really struggling
to start this groove off because you've got beat
one, which is on its own. And then you've got all these
groups of two repeating. So I've got 12301. If you're really struggling
to get into the shuffle, try doing starting on the
last note of the bar. So you've got that
high hat on its own, then the base, so
you could go obese. So rather than starting on base does that so just to
start the rhythm off, that's something that
people struggle with. A base. That base, a base. So just a little thing
that might help you guys out against stick with it. It does take some time
and some some work, but you will get it
up here we have 60. Then again get your triplets, 3.4 and 123. Here we go. Just starting out.
Once you get into it, like say it's just two
groups or two or base. They snapped a base, a base. But it's just start with that
one. And then you're off. It's just sometimes getting into the shuffle, so it's bent. You will get this
guys. Okay, and then if you're up for it, we're going through
the one-twenty. If you don't get it today,
don't worry about it again, learn the rest of the
course, come back to this one and you can try
it That vaster later. But it's one-twenty.
Get the triplets run under 2.3 a four. That's a rhythm to three. Here we go. There we go. Last exercise
four and please check out exercise five because
we're going to do what we just did with the bass drums,
but with the snare drums. Now, you see if the next one.
6. Adding Snares: Hey there guys,
right, and we're on to what does this exercise five. So we're doing exactly
what we did in the last exercise with
the two bass drums. Now we'll do it with
two snare drums. So we're back to one bass
drum at the beginning, bass drum and high hat together. Little eighth note triplet
rest high on his own. And then we're into
snare and hat. So up to their same
as I kind of standard shuffle, base a snap. And then on the very last night that we're going to put
a snare drum and high, again, all the same volume. So it's gonna be based on that, a snare and hat, snare and hat and
against all be aware of those rest, rest, rest. Snare, bass. Bass. So you can see other kind
of face of it. It's not that complicated, but when you're trying to play it, the tricky thing is that
last snare drum going into the bass drums that Blaine an extra snare
drum, usually not. The issue is getting
the rhythm with these new variation that
we've applied to it because you might have got it down
like, okay, I got the shuffle. You've got that muscle memory. But these little
variations are enough to just make the whole thing
come tumbling down. So it's trying to put in these variations without
everything else getting lost. And at the start of
it would be like just not once an admin black
man, that's just tough. Stick with it because all of
these variations build up. You're not going to have
to say it takes you 10 min to sit down and get
that snare drum in there. And it's like, Oh man,
it's gonna take me 10 min for every extra
know or addition. I put it within the
shuffle groove. Know, because again, it's the rate of kinda getting
better is exponential. You start slowly, like okay,
exercise to arts tricky. It's tricky. And then it's like all of a
sudden your muscle memory, you coordination and
independence all kick in and adding another
gauche now are under the bass drum on
moving to the crash, they become a lot easier. So first exercise
might take 10 min, next one might take
five, next one might take two, might
take three weeks. Who knows what, but
spend time with it. You're not going to
have to work this hard for every single exercise. You then add to a shuffle. It's just shuffles become doable thing and
you'll be able to add things freely
almost immediately. So that's what we're aiming towards by doing
it the right way. Okay, So again, based on hi-hat
and its own, then a snap. And then this is the
tricky bit, snare bass. You can just work on
that bit, snare and hat. That's the trouble,
trouble area. And again, happens in
the middle of the group, but it also happens
right at the end. You've got another
snare drum at the end. And then you've got the
first note of the groove. So it's actually just
repeating twice. So bass, snare, snap, snap base. If I play this without the shuffled rhythms to take
all the rest out in the triplets you
base their face. She got it straight equivalent. So by the way, I might know
if I explained it straight, It's just the, just the opposite of the kind of
swing shuffle groups. So bass, bass and snare snap. The swing group, the
shuffle based database. A lot about. And that's the group,
60 BPM and one-twenty. Here we go. Get your
triplets in your mind. You're trying to get
three beats per click. Your eighth note
triplets 34. Here we go. I never go. And then
our gold sample, 120 bpm, twice as fast. So we can get, if
you playing just with a metronome,
get your triplets. 1002031231233 beats per click. 123. Here we go. Anyway, I'll see you guys
for the final exercise, exercise six in a moment.
7. Final Variation: The guys you made it
to the final exercise, exercise six or at
shuffle grooves cost. So this one, I've
saved it to last because this is the
one that people seem to really like it. It's got a really nice feel to it and it's to do with
those bass drums would, so we're doing two
bass drums again, kinda like we did
in exercise four. But we've got them from
different places this time, starting with the bass drum
and hi-hat and its own. Then we've got the assessor high hadn't its own snare
drum hi-hat together. But then the next bit, which
would normally be like a hat base three, we're gonna be putting
two bass drums that right next to each other. Okay, and this is
where we can start incorporating the slide
technique or the plane. The two base dominates
really quick, which you guys know
I'm a massive fan of bass drums in a row. So yep, but we have that
going on within this group. So base and when you play that
first patient when hi-hat, That's the last time you play
one bass drum on its own. Because then when you
next play that you'd have the bass drum from the end going into the beginning again. So you have 123412. So the only one bass drum is
right at the beginning, 123. Because again, that one
bass drum on its own would have the other
based on, again, if you're still struggling
to get into your shuffle, you could start with
the very last node of the group to then
go into beat one. Again, this is something
that does help people out. Sometimes you just want to try and learn to do
that and then trying to start on beat one because
you don't want to have to count in the band 12341. You want to go 1234? Of course you could, but again, we wanna be able
to do all things. If you find something that
makes your drawing easier, use that for now,
but then see if you can live without it. You don't want any kind of crutches when you
playing in the band to soap, base, base, base, base base 34123, 1231. And that's our final group. So 60 BPM. Here we go. Again,
get you triplets. 123. Here we go. There we go. And final targets and
about 120 bpm. Good luck. Here we go. The triplets, 1.2 and a 3a4a1, that
she should follow them. 1234. You can see at that
tempo bump, bump, that little slide on the pedal, it starts coming in there. Congratulations guys,
you've done it. You've finished the course
on shuffle grooves. Again, there's more
of these courses to come as a whole load of things
we can do with shuffles, this new environment which
you've got the kind of, I say basic versions down. This is not basic
drumming, It's all, but it's the basic
kind of shuffles. But then we're going to
build onto that into some much more advanced
shuffle patterns and Sha, fulfills and things. But this, you've got the
absolutely crucial part of understanding the triplets and being able to apply them
in some groove waste. And of course with all of
these we've talked about, fills are playing on
your ride cymbal, put it on the floor, tom. All that awesome
stuff you can get into that we've not
even touched on. But again, we've had
a lot of theory stuff in this course today. So I hope that's helped you again have some
fun with that. Let me know if you need
any help with anything and I'll see you for
the next lesson, of course, sometime soon.
Dex Star, Professional Drum Lessons
