Three over Four Triplet Comping Patterns

This idea follows on from idea 43. Here we look at how to apply some of these four-beat triplet groups to create interesting comping patterns.

The base pattern is one that you can find in John Riley’s Headroom Triplets as well as in a musical context with Jimmy Cobb on So What - minus the bass drum.

It consists of three triplet beats on the snare drum and every fourth beat on the kick - Exercise A.

To develop some more interesting patterns we can start to remove one or more of the triplets in the snare drum part.

Exercise A1 shows a pattern with the first beat missing. Exercise A2 shows a pattern with the first two beats missing.

Both of these patterns create some interesting musical tension.

Practice all these exercises with jazz time in the ride cymbal and the hi-hat on 2 + 4 ( or all 4 as per Tony).

Experiment with moving the snare part to different sounds.

Exercises A3 - A6 in the PDF work on some different figures by removing other beats of the base pattern.

You should repeat a similar process with the other three placements of the pattern - B to D in the PDF - to discover more ideas and possibilities.

Have fun. Make music.