Hi. I am Wes Crawford and we are going to now study the old Blues type beats and these are based in 12/8 time, but 12 beats per measure within in 8 notes of beat. Well, that might get complicated for a minute, so let’s just think of it in 4/4 times so we still have four beats per measure but let’s just subdivide those beats into triplets. That’s three groupings for each beat and we can count them one triplet, two triplet, three triplet, four triplet.
What often varies from a style or differentiates a style from another is the way we subdivide the beats, and so now were dividing the beat into thirds or triplets, it has a whole different feel. A very basic Blues kind of beat or 12/8 or 4/4 with triplets beat might be [Demonstration]—one triplet, two triplet, three triplet, four triplet; one triplet, two triplet, three triplet, four triplet; one triplet, two triplet, three triplet, four triplet.
As you can see it has quite a different feel than the regular rock beats we have been playing that would be now it goes to [Demonstration] one triplet, two triplet, three triplet, four triplet. We could keep our bass drum on the beat every time, one triplet, two triplet, three triplet, four triplet; one triplet, two triplet, three triplet, four triplet.
We can vary the bass drum more like one triplet, two triplet, three triplet, four triplet; one triplet, two triplet, three triplet, four triplet. That is one triplet, two triplet, three triplet, four triplet; one triplet, two triplet, three triplet, four triplet.
And you can get more complicated with a beat. You can bring in 16th notes, vary up these snare drum. Its up to you, listen to all kinds of music and see what other people have done before you, but one thing out of all these you better get used to doing is playing that slower. Just go to the right cymbal and try to play along with this [Demonstration] and do that for four minutes, a lot of Blues songs are very slow.
We can also hear them in old rock and roll records, where it sped up more and you might hear [Demonstration], one triplet, two triplet, three triplet, four triplet [Demonstration]. Anyway, so these are just some other types of beats to explore that are very important. You’ll very definitely play in a Blues gig somewhere someday and you better know that one.
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