This is one of my go-to ghost note groove patterns and it’s absolutely fundamental in my opinion, to laying down solid and dynamic beats. It’s quite simple – the ghost notes are played on the even 16th notes, so the ‘e’ and the ‘a’ if we’re counting ‘1, e, &, a, 2, e, &, a’ etc.
You can place this across three or four limbs – ie, you can play this with a quarter or 8th note pedal hat count, or you can choose to play it with just three limbs, keeping the hats closed. There’s no wrong way to express this but fundamentally, we’re going for very quiet ghost notes with a snare accent on the ‘3’ of a 3/4 count.
Loop exercise
This loop is played at 110bpm – if you’re comfortable at this speed, try to increase in 5/10bpm increments.
