Beats for Humanity: Drumming with Microtime [Part 2]

In the first installment of this series, we began exploring how to emulate playing slightly off of the rhythmic grid by using flams and blending different beat subdivisions together. We limited ourselves to the 8th note, 16th note, and triplet rhythmic grids. In this portion, we’re going to explore how to use the less common rhythmic grids of quintuplets and septuplets to create particularly unique feels.

While quintuplets and septuplets are gradually becoming more prevalent in contemporary music around this part of the world, they’re widely used in classical Indian music and traditional Balkan music. Since they break the beats into an odd number of parts, they have a lopsided feel with uneven stresses. Basically, beats can be felt as containing a mixture of short and long pulses with these divisions.

Quintuplets

Quintuplets are created by splitting beats into 5 equal parts. They allow drummers to utilize the space between 16th notes and 16th triplets. As a result, when first learning quintuplets, it’s likely you’ll accidentally slip back onto either the 16th note or 16th triplet grids. They have a very unique feel that takes lots of practice to internalize. To slightly simplify quintuplets, we can think of beats as being broken into a group of 2 and a group of 3, or a short pulse followed by a slightly longer pulse. They’re essentially slightly unequal 8th notes. Of course, we can reverse those groupings and think of beats as a group of 3 and a group of 2, or a long pulse and a slightly shorter pulse.

To begin building some beats around a quintuplet feel, we’ll focus on 3 particular hihat patterns. Every groove will still have a steady backbeat (snare hits on beats 2 and 4), but all the strokes in the middle of the beats exist on the quintuplet grid.

Hihat Pattern 1

The first hihat pattern entails playing on the 1st, 3rd, and 5th parts of each beat. The 1st and 3rd parts of the beats should have a slight accent, while the 5th part of the beat should feel like a “skip stroke,” like when playing a swing pattern on the ride cymbal. This hihat pattern implies a short-long interpretation of quintuplets (group of 2 plus a group of 3). The kick will play right on beats 1 and 3, as well as the 4th part of each beat. The kick on the 4th part of the beats lands in between strokes on the hihats, which really amplifies the unsteady feel of the quintuplets. The snare plays on beats 2 and 4. No surprises there!

Hihat Pattern 2

This next hihat pattern consists of playing on the 1st, 3rd, and 4th parts of each beat, with a slight accent on the 1st and 4th parts of the beats. In this case, the 3rd part of the beat feels like a skip stroke, implying a long-short pulse (group of 3 plus a group of 2). This rhythm is referred to by some as the quintuplet swing pattern. It’s practically a quintuplet interpretation of the swing cymbal pattern. To complete the groove, the kick will play right on beats 1 and 3, as well as the 5th part of each beat, while the snare plays a straight-ahead backbeat (just like in the first groove).

Hihat Pattern 3

The last hihat pattern is a bit different since the hihats don’t accent on the downbeats. The pattern consists of the 1st, 2nd, and 4th parts of each beat, with a slight accent on the 2nd and 4th parts of the beats. Since the downbeats aren’t emphasized, this pattern feels especially syncopated compared to the other two. Like the second groove, the kick will play on beats 1 and 3, and the 5th part of each beat, while the snare plays on beats 2 and 4.

Septuplets

As you may have guessed, septuplets are created by splitting beats into 7 equal parts. They allow drummers to utilize the space between 16th triplets and 32nd notes (6 and 8-part divisions respectively). We can also break septuplets into smaller groups the same way we did with quintuplets. Since there are 7 parts to each beat, we can break them up into two groups of 2, and a group of 3, or two shorter pulses that are equal in length followed by one slightly longer pulse (short-short-long). The three stresses of each beat can be rearranged in any order: short-short-long (2 + 2 + 3), short-long-short (2 + 3 + 2), or long-short-short (3 + 2 + 2). And just like with the quintuplet grooves, we’ll build a few septuplet grooves around 3 specific hihat patterns to get into the feel.

Hihat Pattern 1

The first hihat pattern entails playing on all the odd-numbered parts of the beats: the 1st, 3rd, 5th, and 7th parts. The 7th part of the beat is a skip stroke, so it should be a little quieter than the others. This hihat pattern implies a short-short-long cadence (2 + 2 + 3). The kick will play directly on beats 1 and 3, as well as the 6th part of every beat, which happens to be in between two strokes on the hihats. Again, staggering the kick between the hihats amplifies the lopsided effect of these kinds of grooves. With the snare hitting on 2 and 4, this groove feels like it’s stuck between the triplet grid and the 16th/32nd note grid. It’s tough to get into at first so start as slowly as you need to in order to keep everything spaced properly.

Hihat Pattern 2

The second hihat pattern consists of playing the 1st, 3rd, 5th, and 6th parts of each beat, implying a short-long-short cadence (2 + 3 + 2). In this case, the 5th part of the beat is a skip stroke and should be a bit quieter than the others. The kick plays right on beats 1 and 3, as well as the 7th part of each beat. And just like usual, the snare plays on 2 and 4.

Hihat Pattern 3

The last hihat pattern we’ll work with consists of playing the 1st, 3rd, 4th, and 6th parts of each beat. With this pattern, the 3rd part of the beat is the skip stroke and should be played a little quieter. The kick will land in the same positions as the previous groove: right on beats 1 and 3, and the 7th part of each beat. And, you guessed it, the snare will play steady backbeats.

Of course, there are many ways to further embellish and develop quintuplet and septuplet grooves, but it’s extremely important to first internalize these beat divisions in more basic forms. As your sense of the underlying beat becomes stronger, you’ll have much more freedom playing on and switching between various rhythmic grids. In the next installment of this series, we’ll explore how to utilize all the concepts leading up to this point and how to nearly abandon the rhythmic grid altogether.