Introduction to MIDI and Computer Music: Drum Patterns

Constructing Drum Patterns

Below are several drum patterns we looked at in class, extracted from popular songs and realized in the Digital Performer Drum Editor. In most cases, the View Resolution is set to sixteenth notes, so that there are four sixteenth squares per beat and four beats per measure. The higher the note velocity, the deeper the color for the note. Only one measure of the pattern is shown; repeat this to make a longer beat. Drummers always vary the realization of such patterns, sometimes adding or dropping notes, playing fills (usually faster flourishes between phrases), playing notes with varying strengths and subtle timing differences. None of this is reflected in the notation shown below.

Drum patterns used in many styles of Western popular music typically feature an alternation between kick (i.e., bass) and snare drums, with the kick on beats 1 and 3 (in 4/4 time) and the snare on beats 2 and 4 (the backbeats). A more constant, faster-moving part on hi-hat or ride cymbals completes the texture. Think of the patterns below as variations on this particular setup.

Try recreating these patterns in the Drum Editor, and experiment with your own variations.

Beatles: Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band (Reprise) (1967)

This is a straight-forward rock beat with clear alternation of kick and snare and a fairly constant eighth-note hi-hat part. (Try to ignore the shaker sound in the left channel when focusing on the hi-hat.) The hi-hat notes are not all of the same strength.

Play an excerpt of Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band.

Led Zeppelin: When the Levee Breaks (1970, written by Kansas Joe McCoy & Memphis Minnie in 1929)

This heavy beat by Zeppelin’s drummer, John Bonham, is similar to Ringo’s pattern in Sgt. Pepper, except that the kick drum has some syncopated sixteenth notes.

Play an excerpt of When the Levee Breaks.

Scott Henderson Trio: Lady P (2002)

Take the basic quarter-note alternation of kick and snare from the Sgt. Pepper pattern and move the first snare note and second kick note earlier by one eighth note. The resulting pattern sounds intriguingly off balance, especially when combined with the frequently syncopated guitar and bass parts. (Listen for the occasional fourth-beat, low tom-tom note, as well as the soft snare rolls leading into the first kick note. These details are not notated below.)

Play an excerpt of Lady P.

Watch a live performance video of Lady P.

Kraftwerk: Pocket Calculator (1981)

Stylistically, this music seems worlds apart from the rock and blues/rock examples above. But the basic drum setup is similar. The main difference, of course, is the prominent “four on the floor” bass drum pattern in relentless quarter notes, so characteristic of disco and house styles. Another characteristic of these styles is an emphasis on the off-beat eighth notes in the hi-hat part, which are played much louder than the on-the-beat eighths here.
Rather than the subtle human timing flexibility found in the other excerpts, this example — from the fathers of techno — revels in the robotic nature of machine-made drumming, with every note precisely quantized to a grid of sixteenth notes. Notice that there is a softer, closed hi-hat part that plays a stream of sixteenth notes, which is not notated here.

Play an excerpt of Pocket Calculator. The beat starts about one third of the way in.

James Brown: Funky President (1974)

The funk style of drumming typically features an active kick drum part with an emphasis on syncopated sixteenth notes, even as it mostly preserves the snare backbeats from basic rock patterns.
In the notation below, the hi-hat part is split into two lines to show the contrast between open and closed hi-hat notes. The sixteenth notes in the kick drum part are played with a swing feel, as triplet sixteenths. (So for example, the sixteenth kick note just before the first snare hit is played even closer to the snare note than the notation shows.)

Play an excerpt of Funky President.

Steely Dan: Babylon Sisters (1980)

This pattern is called a half-time shuffle and is often attributed to Bernard Purdie, the drummer in the two Steely Dan examples below. It features a strong contrast between loud snare hits (deep red) on beats 2 and 4 and soft snare hits (light red) — called ghost notes — that complete the triplet sixteenth figures played lightly on the hi-hat. Note that the quarter notes in this pattern are divided into six parts (sextuplets), instead of four parts, which gives the pattern more of a swing feel. Sometimes the last note of each triplet sixteenth figure is played with the hi-hat open, and the first with the hi-hat closed.

Even with all these details, the basic alternation between kick and snare heard in the Beatles excerpt above is still clear in this shuffle pattern.

Play an excerpt of Babylon Sisters.

Some related examples:
Steely Dan: Home at Last (1977) — it might be easier to hear the ghost notes in this example, even though the kick pattern is trickier.

Led Zeppelin: Fool in the Rain (1979) — yet another kick pattern.

Just the drum track of Fool in the Rain (note that Bonham’s countoff corresponds to eighths in our notation, not quarters).