Simple three beat comping

This simple comping idea using a three-beat figure is a powerful way to build tension in your jazz drumming. I hear the great Joe Chambers doing something similar on many recordings such as "Black" from the album "Mode for Joe" by Joe Henderson.

It is very easy: just play an upbeat eight-note every three beats. The pattern takes three bars to come around and if you play it four times then you’ve just comped a 12-bar blues. Try to keep the other parts, especially the ride cymbal steady, as well as your place within the form of the tune.

To expand this particular idea further, try some of these exercises:

1. Play the figure on each of the toms.
2. Play the figure between the snare drum and the hi-tom; the snare drum and the floor-tom; the hi-tom and the low-tom. Then reverse.
3. Play the figure on the bass drum. Then the hi-hat.
4. Play the figure between the snare drum and the bass drum (Fig. A1).

Once you are hearing and feeling the figure, you can find ways to drop in and out of it, and close it as a complete musical phrase.

Figure B shows the phrase in a four-bar pattern, that finishes on the and of beat 4. You can find and create other similar phrases in this way.

Make sure you practice this figure starting and ending on each of the three bars. The placement in the music will sound and feel different in each case.

There is a lot, and I mean a lot, of rhythmic vocabulary to build from using figures that repeat every three beats.

Over the next few posts, I will give you a few more ideas to work with.

Have fun. Make music.