This off beat hi-hat groove sounds great, is applicable in loads of musical situations and is pretty easy to learn. In many of the live music situations we drummers find ourselves in we want to inject some fun and excitement into our grooves but if we deviate too far from the staple rhythm of the song then we will mess with the flow, get some raised eyebrows and possibly get sacked. And yes, most of us have been guilty of overplaying at some point just because we’re bored or want to try out that awesome poly rhythmic lick we’ve been working on at home. I have!

But seriously, that does not always serve the music and if you have no consideration for the music then you are not going to be hired again. But one way we can bring some extra interest into the live situation without upsetting the groove is to maintain a steady bass and snare drum pattern but embellish the hi-hat part. And that’s where this off beat hi-hat groove comes in.

So what have we got here?

In this off beat hi-hat groove we are creating a three note pattern which involves playing a hi-hat, leaving a rest then playing a hi-hat. Now if you looped that pattern without any other notes you would create a shuffle which is based on the triplet. But to make this more interesting we are playing this over 16th notes thus creating a poly rhythmic feel. Our three note hi-hat pattern falls across the beat because 16th notes are phrased with four in a  beat. When we place our bass on beats one and three and the snares on beats two and four that reinforces our quarter note pulse so that the hi-hats grouped in threes play against that. This creates an interesting sound immediately.

To take this a step further we will place an accent on the second hi-hat in each group. You will see on the sheet music (link below) that as this pattern loops around we get two hi-hats on consecutive 16th notes. So when we see this cluster of two we play the first one as an unaccented hi-hat and the second one as an accented hi-hat. This technique is often found in Latin bell patterns so it’s a cool thing to learn that will serve you well when we learn those type of patterns.

My advice is to work though the pattern as written on the sheet and as instructed in the video lesson below. That is to learn the basic hi-hat pattern, then add the accents and then finally add the bass and snare drums.

So let’s get cracking. Scroll down and click the link below to start this lesson for free. 

This off beat hi-hat groove is just one example. You could create a million other ideas so I really hope this is the start of a journey of exploration for you. Have fun!