New Orleans Groove Lesson

This is a groove from New Orleans that I heard played by the Rebirth Brass Band. In the band, they have:

• A bass drum player who has a cymbal on top of the bass drum
• A snare drum player

I was trying to find a way to play that sort of sound and emulate it on the drum kit.

Hi-Hat Setup

• I've got a bottom hi-hat, quite thick.
• I've taped it up so it's even more pingy to create that kind of sound they get on the bass drum.

I'm playing on the top, but I try to play as lightly as I can to get that pingy sound.

Playing Technique

• The side stick with the left hand goes in at the same time as this cymbal.
• The right hand moves from the snare drum to the cymbal.

Part Two

The second part involves moving the left hand from the rim shot over to the center of the drum.

Part Three

The third part is to bring in the bass drum, playing a regular first half of the 3-2 Clave.

Let's go a bit slower with this groove.

Rolls

The last part is the rolls; it's almost like a timbale roll. We throw that in every now and again.

I'll speed it up a little bit, and you can hear where they go.

Note on Timing

Now, this is the only time that you can't play the cymbal because you have to play the timbale roll here.

Another roll you can do is:

• Play for the whole bar
• At the last point, do a nice big accent with the bass drum, which will sound like this.

Putting It All Together

So, to put the whole thing together, it sounds like this.

Thanks very much! If you found this interesting and useful, I've just finished a course on musicgurus.com, and you can learn a lot more about New Orleans drumming there.

Many thanks!