A drum beat or drum pattern is a rhythmic pattern, or repeated

rhythm Rhythm (from Greek , ''rhythmos'', "any regular recurring motion, symmetry") generally means a " movement marked by the regulated succession of strong and weak elements, or of opposite or different conditions". This general meaning of regular r ...

establishing the

meter The metre (or meter in US spelling; symbol: m) is the base unit of length in the International System of Units (SI). Since 2019, the metre has been defined as the length of the path travelled by light in vacuum during a time interval of of ...

and

groove Groove or Grooves may refer to: Music * Groove (music) * Groove (drumming) * The Groove (band), an Australian rock/pop band of the 1960s * The Groove (Sirius XM), a US radio station * Groove 101.7FM, a former Perth, Australia, radio station ...

through the

pulse In medicine, the pulse refers to the rhythmic pulsations (expansion and contraction) of an artery in response to the cardiac cycle (heartbeat). The pulse may be felt ( palpated) in any place that allows an artery to be compressed near the surfac ...

and subdivision, played on

drum kit A drum kit or drum set (also known as a trap set, or simply drums in popular music and jazz contexts) is a collection of drums, cymbals, and sometimes other Percussion instrument, auxiliary percussion instruments set up to be played by one p ...

s and other

percussion A percussion instrument is a musical instrument that is sounded by being struck or scraped by a percussion mallet, beater including attached or enclosed beaters or Rattle (percussion beater), rattles struck, scraped or rubbed by hand or ...

instruments. As such a "beat" consists of multiple drum strokes occurring over multiple musical beats while the term "drum beat"Principals of Basic Drum Beats
/ref> may also refer to a single drum stroke which may occupy more or less time than the current pulse. Many drum beats define or are characteristic of specific

music genre A music genre is a conventional category that identifies some pieces of music as belonging to a shared tradition or set of conventions. Genre is to be distinguished from musical form and musical style, although in practice these terms are sometim ...

s. Many basic drum beats establish the pulse through alternating

bass Bass or Basses may refer to: Fish * Bass (fish), various saltwater and freshwater species Wood * Bass or basswood, the wood of the tilia americana tree Music * Bass (sound), describing low-frequency sound or one of several instruments in th ...

(on the on-beats) and

snare drum The snare drum (or side drum) is a percussion instrument that produces a sharp staccato sound when the head is struck with a drum stick, due to the use of a series of stiff wires held under tension against the lower skin. Snare drums are often u ...

s (on the off-beats) strokes while establishing the subdivision on the ride cymbal (thus its name) or hi-hat: This establishes a quarter note pulse in (quad) duple time: each measure is formed from (two groups of) two quarter note pulses, each pulse divided into two eighth notes. This establishes a quarter note pulse in triple time: each measure is formed from three quarter note pulses, each divided into two eighth notes. This establishes a dotted-quarter note pulse in duple time: each measure is formed from two dotted-quarter note pulses, each pulse divided into three eighth notes. Compound triple meter is equivalent to simple duple meter with

triplets A multiple birth is the culmination of a multiple pregnancy, wherein the mother gives birth to two or more babies. A term most applicable to vertebrate species, multiple births occur in most kinds of mammals, with varying frequencies. Such births ...

on every beat. This establishes a dotted-quarter note pulse in triple time: each measure is formed from three dotted-quarter note pulses, each pulse divided into three eighth notes. A " fill" is played in between the regular strokes of a pattern and/or signals the end of a

phrase In grammar, a phrasecalled expression in some contextsis a group of words or singular word acting as a grammatical unit. For instance, the English language, English expression "the very happy squirrel" is a noun phrase which contains the adject ...

: Since a phrase is multiple measures long, a fill signaling the end of one would come at the end of the last in a series of repeated measures. In

double Double, The Double or Dubble may refer to: Mathematics and computing * Multiplication by 2 * Double precision, a floating-point representation of numbers that is typically 64 bits in length * A double number of the form x+yj, where j^2=+1 * A ...

and half-time patterns the pulse and ride are either doubled or halved, respectively, occurring twice or half as often: A blast beat drum pattern features all

drums The drum is a member of the percussion instrument, percussion group of musical instruments. In the Hornbostel–Sachs classification system, it is a membranophones, membranophone. Drums consist of at least one Acoustic membrane, membrane, c ...

on the eighth note subdivision or variants with one or more drum's pattern displaced by a sixteenth note: This resembles a combination of double-time (bass-snare pattern) and original time (ride pattern). Despite the difference in notation, there is no difference in interonset intervals and this pattern is nearly identical to the first simple duple pattern except for the second onbeat being divided into two eighth notes and the second backbeat being delayed an eighth note. The heavy metal gallop, named for a horse's canter, is based on a bass drum pattern of one eighth followed by two sixteenths. This resembles a combination of double-time (bass-snare pattern) and original time (ride pattern).

Sources

{{drum beats Drum patterns

See also

Sources