GressusGroovebox · Reference

Grooves and Song Structure

Fig. 1 — THE GROOVEBOX

A groove is the pattern a band plays over and over, a bar or a few, that every part locks to. A song is the order those repeats come in. Learn to hear both and you can always tell where you are in a song, and where it is going next.

It starts with a single groove and ends with whole genres, each step using only what came before. Counting a bar is on the Metronome page; chords are on the Chord Library page.

On these pages

Part one — The groove	03
Part two — Counting the song	13
Part three — Sections and forms	21
Part four — How the band marks the form	31
Part five — A genre is a groove and a form	35
Building a groove on the groovebox	49
Playing along	56
Common questions	57

Grooves and Song Structure01

GressusThe tool

Fig. 1 — THE GROOVEBOX

Full screen

The groovebox02

GressusThe loop

Part one

The groove

The loop

Try it

Tap your foot on every beat. Now clap on 2 and 4 only, and keep the foot going. You are playing a groove.

A loop is the stretch of music a band repeats: often one bar or two, commonly four, sometimes eight. A groove is a loop that every part of the band agrees on, and that the band can settle into.

A groove is felt rather than counted. Once it is running, the players stop thinking about it, and that is the point: it frees their attention for everything else. Every part of the kit below is a way of building one.

Clap along to almost any record made since 1955 and you are clapping half a groove already.

The groove03

GressusThe kick

The kick

The kick is the bass drum, played with a foot pedal. It is the floor of the music: beat 1 almost always, beat 3 usually, and every beat when the music wants to drive. A kick on every beat is four on the floor.

Fig. 2 — THREE KICKS

Rock — 1 and 3

Pop — 1, the and of 2, and 3

Four on the floor

Kick: bottom space, stem down

Three kicks, same tempo, same everything else. The middle one is the pop kick: an extra hit off the beat, here on the and of 2, that makes the groove bounce where a rock kick on 1 and 3 drives straight ahead.

Nothing else on the kit can do this job. A kick is felt as much as heard: take it away and the groove loses its floor, even when the listener could not say what has gone.

The groove04

GressusThe snare

The snare, and the backbeat

The snare answers the kick, and it answers on 2 and 4: the weak beats. The Metronome page calls this the backbeat. Here it is played.

Fig. 3 — THE BACKBEAT

The backbeat

Cross-stick — the same place, quietly

Snare: 3rd space · Cross-stick: × in the 3rd space

Same two beats, two different sounds. A cross-stick is the stick laid across the snare, tip on the head, its shaft clicking the rim: the backbeat is still there, but it stops shouting.

Kick and snare alone carry a groove. Everything else in Part one adds to these two.

The groove05

GressusThe hi-hat

The hi-hat

The hi-hat is a pair of cymbals on a stand, held closed by a pedal under the drummer’s foot. It is subdivision made audible: the drummer’s own click, played out loud so everybody else can use it.

Fig. 4 — THE HI-HAT

On the crotchets / quarter notes

On the quavers / eighth notes — the commonest of all

On the semiquavers / sixteenth notes

Hi-hat: × above the staff

The hat is where a drummer tells you how finely to count. Denser is not faster: all three are the same tempo.

It has a second voice. Letting the two cymbals part for one stroke gives an open hat, a longer, washier sound. It is often played at the end of a bar, where it leans forward into the next one. Opened on every and, it is the sound of disco.

The groove06

GressusStrumming

Your hand in the groove

Try it

With your fretting hand resting lightly across the strings to mute them, move your strumming hand down on every beat and up between the beats, without stopping. Now let it touch the strings only on some of the strokes.

Fig. 5 — DOWN AND UP

Down and up, every stroke

Island strum

The same hand in both. Down-strokes fall on the beats, up-strokes between them, and the pale strokes are the hand still moving where it does not meet the strings.

The strumming hand is a hi-hat played on a guitar. It moves continuously, like the hat’s subdivision, and the pattern is made of where it meets the strings.

The groove07

GressusThe damped stroke

That continuous motion keeps the rhythm even, and it is why a strum written only as note values is nearly unplayable from the page: the notation shows the strokes and hides the hand.

The damped stroke

A third kind of stroke sits between playing and not playing. The strings are struck with the fretting hand lifted just off the frets but still touching them, so they sound as a dull click rather than a chord.

If the strum is the hi-hat, the damped stroke is the snare: put it on 2 and 4 and a guitar plays the backbeat with no drummer at all, a sound common in funk and soul.

Reggae and ska use a close cousin, the skank: a real chord, cut short the moment it sounds. Ska plays it on every and, between the beats. Reggae is slower and is usually counted so the same chop lands on 2 and 4. Either way it sits off the beat, away from the kick.

Two guitars, two patterns

Two guitars playing the same rhythm sound like one guitar played louder. Two guitars playing different rhythms that fit together make an arrangement, which is why each guitar part has its own pattern.

Down on the beat, up between. The gaps are where the hand is, not where it stops.

The groove08

GressusThe push

The push

Hear it

A chord on beat 1. Then the same chord, half a beat early.

Fig. 6 — A PUSHED CHORD

The second chord starts on the and of 4, half a beat before the bar line, and rings on through beat 1. Only the moment it starts has moved.

The band does not stop, and the drums do not move. Only the chord moves. Written down, a push is a kind of syncopation, covered on the Metronome page. Pushed chords are one of the defining sounds of popular music.

The groove09

GressusThe ride

The ride

The ride is the big cymbal on the drummer’s right. It does the hat’s job, keeping time, with a longer, washier sound, and in jazz it is where the time lives.

Fig. 7 — THE RIDE

Ride: × on the top line · Hi-hat, foot: × below the staff, stem down · Kick: bottom space, stem down

The jazz ride pattern, “ding, ding-a, ding, ding-a”, swung: each beat split long–short rather than in two equal halves (the Metronome page explains swing). The hi-hat closes with the drummer’s foot on 2 and 4.

There is no backbeat on the snare, on purpose: a jazz drummer uses the snare to answer the band.

The groove10

GressusBrushes

Brushes

A brush can be swept as well as struck. A swirl is a continuous sound with no attack at all, so it fills the space between the beats instead of marking them.

Fig. 8 — STRUCK AGAINST SWEPT

Struck — each hit is an event

Swept — the sound never stops

Snare: 3rd space · Brush swirl: 3rd space, held

In a 6/8 ballad the swirl sweeps once across each beat, so the two marks are the starts of two sweeps rather than two hits.

This is why a ballad reaches for brushes rather than a quieter stick. The point is not the volume but the filling.

Sticks divide time. Brushes can also fill it.

The groove11

GressusPercussion

Over a kit, percussion doubles

Fig. 9 — WHERE PERCUSSION SITS

Hi-hat: × above the staff · Snare: 3rd space · Shaker: its own line · Tambourine: its own line

Shaker with the hat; tambourine with the snare. Neither is a new rhythm.

A shaker runs with the hat and carries the subdivision; a tambourine lands with the snare on the backbeat; a clap does the same, brighter. A cowbell marks the beat above the kit. In a pop or rock groove none of them makes a new rhythm, which is why they can come and go without the groove changing.

Three kits

The groovebox has three sets of drum sounds. Acoustic is a real kit played with sticks; Brushes is the same kit played with brushes; Electronic is a drum machine, its sounds made electronically rather than copied from a kit. Any style can be played on any of them.

The groove12

GressusCounting bars

Part two

Counting the song

Counting bars

Try it

Put on any song and count its bars aloud: the bar’s number on beat 1, then the beats after it. One-2-3-4, two-2-3-4, three-2-3-4, four-2-3-4. Then start again from one.

Keep counting past four if nothing has changed. You will almost always reach four, or eight, just as something changes.

Fig. 10 — COUNTING BARS

bar 1one 2 · 3 · 4

bar 2two 2 · 3 · 4

bar 3three 2 · 3 · 4

bar 4four 2 · 3 · 4

Four bars, counted. The number on beat 1 says which bar you are in.

That group of bars is a phrase: a musical sentence. In popular music a phrase is almost always four bars long. Counting bars as well as beats is how players keep their place, and it is the first skill of playing in a band.

Counting the song13

GressusRoman numerals

Chords by number: I, IV and V

Try it

Play C, F, G, C. Now play A, D, E, A. The second sounds like the first, moved to a different pitch.

Musicians write both the same way, because they are the same thing in two keys. Count up the scale of the key: the chord on its first note is I, on its fourth IV, on its fifth V.

Fig. 11 — ONE PROGRESSION, TWO KEYS

CI	IV	V	I
AI	IV	V	I

I IV V I in C, and in A. One chart serves both keys.

Writing chords as Roman numerals makes a progression portable: a band can change key without rewriting a note. I is the key chord, home. IV and V are its closest neighbours; why they are is on the Circle of Fifths page.

Counting the song14

GressusThe chords of a key

The other chords: ii, iii, vi

A major key has a chord on each of its seven notes. Three are major (I, IV, V), written in capitals. Three are minor, written in lower case: ii, iii and vi. The seventh is diminished, vii°.

Fig. 12 — THE CHORDS OF A KEY

2ii

3iii

4IV

6vi

7vii°

The seven chords of C major.

Two progressions use them so often they are worth knowing by number. I–V–vi–IV, in C: C G Am F, the progression of a great deal of pop. ii–V–I, in C: Dm G C, the progression of jazz, ending home on I.

Counting the song15

GressusCadences

Home and away: the cadence

Hear it

Four bars: I, IV, I, V. Then four more: I, IV, V, I. The first stops on V and sounds unfinished, as if it is waiting for more. The second ends on I and sounds complete.

How a phrase ends has a name: a cadence, the last two chords of a phrase and the feeling they leave. Like punctuation, a cadence tells the listener whether the thought is finished. There are four:

Table 1 · the four cadences, in C

Cadence	Chords	Sounds like
Perfect / authentic	VIMajor→Major	a full stop
Plagal	IVIMajor→Major	a softer full stop, the Amen
Imperfect / half	anyVMajor→Major	a comma
Interrupted / deceptive	VviMajor→Minor	a surprise

Counting the song16

GressusQuestion and answer

Question and answer

Back to the eight bars at the top: the first four end on an imperfect cadence, the second four on a perfect one. Together they are a question and its answer.

Fig. 13 — QUESTION AND ANSWER

1I	2IV	3I	4V
5I	6IV	7V	8I

Two four-bar phrases on the same opening: the first ends away, the second ends home.

Counting the song17

GressusThe cadences

Hearing the other two

Try it

Play F, then C, slowly. That is the plagal cadence, IV to I: the Amen at the end of a hymn, softer than the perfect one.

Try it

Loop C, F, G, C. Then change the last chord to Am. The groove is the same; the ending is not. That is the interrupted cadence, V to vi: you expect home and land next door.

Three of the four have a British name and an American one. Both are in use, and Table 1 gives both.

Why V pulls to I. The pull is strongest when V carries a seventh: G7 to C. The B in G7 rises one semitone to C and the F falls one semitone to E, so two notes resolve at once. The dominant 7 is built on the Chord Library page.

In a minor key, V is usually played as a major chord so that it leads home as strongly as in a major key: E major, not E minor, before A minor.

Counting the song18

GressusThe 12-bar blues

The 12-bar blues

Hear it

The groovebox’s 12-bar blues backing: A, D and E, played as a shuffle: a hard swing, each beat split long–short (the Metronome page explains swing).

An agreed order of phrases and chords is a form. The 12-bar blues is three four-bar phrases built from I, IV and V. It uses three of the four cadences: the plagal in bars 10 and 11, the imperfect at the turnaround, and the perfect at the very end.

Fig. 14 — THE 12-BAR BLUES

1I	2I	3I	4I
5IV	6IV	7I	8I
9V	10IV	11I	12V

In A. Each line is one phrase: a line is sung, the line again over IV, and the answer. The outlined bar is the turnaround.

Counting the song19

GressusThe turnaround

The turnaround. Bar 12 is on V: an imperfect cadence, so the music wants to go on, and it goes round again. The last time, the band stops on the V of bar 12 and then lands together on I: a perfect cadence, and the song ends.

The Amen. Bars 10 to 11 go IV to I, a plagal cadence: the answer line lands softly before the turnaround.

The quick change. A common variant moves to IV in bar 2 and back to I for bars 3 and 4.

In the blues every chord is usually played as a dominant 7, I and IV included. That is the blues’s own colour, not a rule broken.

A form

This one is so widely shared that musicians who have never met can play together after three words: blues in A.

A loop you can join in the middle of. A form you have to know where you are in.

Counting the song20

GressusSections

Part three

Sections and forms

Sections

Two phrases make a section, usually eight bars; the question and answer of Part two is one. Most songs are built from a small set of sections, each with a job and each with its usual cadence.

Intro

Sets the key, the tempo and the groove before the voice arrives. Often the chorus chords, or the last line of the verse.

Verse

The same music each time, new words each time. It tells the story and is usually the quieter section.

Pre-chorus

Optional: a short build towards the chorus. It often ends on V or IV, leaving the music unresolved, so the chorus arrives as the answer.

Chorus

The same music and the same words each time. The title line lives here; it is the peak of the song and usually ends on I.

Sections and forms21

GressusSections

Post-chorus

In much current pop, a short section straight after the chorus, often one short line, repeated, with few words or none.

Bridge / middle eight

Contrast: new chords, often a new key centre, heard once. It usually ends on V to lead back. British players tend to say middle eight, American players bridge.

Outro

The way out: a repeated chorus line fading, or a final cadence and a held chord.

A refrain is not a chorus

A refrain is a line that returns at the end of every verse. A chorus is a section of its own. The difference decides which form a song is in.

Sections and forms22

GressusLetters

Writing forms as letters

A form is written as letters. The first section is A; a different section is B; a section that comes back gets its old letter back.

Fig. 15 — LETTERS

One song, as sections and as letters

A8A8B8A8

VerseVerseBridgeVerse

081624

One song, written both ways. A section keeps its colour each time it returns.

So AABA means the same music three times with one contrast. Every form in the rest of Part three is written this way, and it is how to write down any song you learn.

Forms that repeat one section

Strophic (AAA). The same music for every verse, and no chorus. Folk ballads, hymns and much early country are strophic. A strophic song with a refrain is still AAA: the refrain is the end of each A.

The blues is strophic. Each time round the twelve bars is one A.

Sections and forms23

GressusStrophic forms

Fig. 16 — THREE LENGTHS OF BLUES

8-bar blues

1I	2I	3IV	4IV
5I	6V	7I · IV	8I · V

12-bar blues

1I	2I	3I	4I
5IV	6IV	7I	8I
9V	10IV	11I	12V

16-bar blues: the 8-bar, each chord held twice as long

1I	2I	3I	4I
5IV	6IV	7IV	8IV
9I	10I	11V	12V
13I	14IV	15I	16V

Bar by bar. The 8-bar blues reaches IV in bar 3, sooner than the 12-bar does.

Sections and forms24

GressusTwo sections

Its relatives. The 8-bar blues: two phrases of four, with IV arriving in bar 3. The 16-bar blues: most often the 8-bar at half speed. The minor blues: the twelve bars on minor chords, i and iv, with the V usually kept major so that it still pulls home, though some players make it minor.

Jazz players call each time round a form a chorus, which is why a soloist “takes two choruses”. It is a different use of the word from the chorus of a song.

Forms with two sections

Verse–chorus. The norm of pop and rock: verse and chorus alternate, ABAB. It is usually extended: a pre-chorus before each chorus, and a bridge before the last one, which is verse–chorus–bridge.

Fig. 17 — VERSE, CHORUS, BRIDGE

A full pop song: how full the band is, in a typical song

IntroVersePre-chorusChorusVersePre-chorusChorus

BridgeChorusChorusOutro

IntroVersePre-chorus

ChorusVersePre-chorus

ChorusBridge

ChorusChorusOutro

The chorus keeps its colour: it is the section that returns.

Sections and forms25

GressusBinary form

Binary: AABB

The dance tunes of the folk tradition, reels and jigs among them. The tune has an A part and a B part of eight bars each, each played twice, 32 bars in all. At a session the whole tune often goes round three times before the next one. Some tunes have a third or fourth part, played the same way.

Fig. 18 — BINARY FORM

A reel or jig: 32 bars each time round

A8A8B8B8

A partA partB partB part

Each part played twice.

Every form is repetition and contrast: enough repetition to learn it, enough contrast to stay awake.

Sections and forms26

GressusAABA and ABAC

Forms that come back: AABA and ABAC

AABA, the 32-bar song form. Four sections of eight bars. The B is the bridge, which is why British players call it the middle eight: it is eight bars, in the middle. Jazz players also call it the release. AABA was the commonest form of American popular song from the 1920s to the 1950s, and it is the form of many jazz standards.

Fig. 19 — THE 32-BAR FORMS

AABA

A8A8B8A8

Bridge

ABAC

A8B8A8C8

Two 32-bar forms. ABAC starts its second half like its first, then ends differently.

ABAC. Also 32 bars.

Sections and forms27

GressusStrains

Rhythm changes. One AABA form became a standard in its own right: the chords of an old Gershwin song, I Got Rhythm. Gershwin wrote 34 bars, with a two-bar tag; jazz plays it as a plain 32-bar AABA, and its bridge moves through dominant sevenths a fifth apart. Jazz musicians have written many new tunes on these chords, and rhythm changes is often called the most common form in jazz after the blues.

Forms with many sections: strains

The march. The sections are called strains, and each is usually played twice: A, B, then the trio, which moves to a new key, the one whose home chord is the old IV: from C to F. Like a bridge, the trio is a contrast in a new key. In the American march it does not lead back: the march ends in it. The rag added a return: AABBACCDD, sixteen-bar strains, the trio in IV and a last strain back home.

Fig. 20 — STRAINS

The march

AABBCC

IntroTrio, in IV

The rag

AABBACCDD

Trio, in IV

The march and the rag. A rag returns to A once, but that does not make it a rondo.

Sections and forms28

GressusOne loop

Rondo (ABACA). One section returns between contrasts, again and again. Rare in popular music, but worth recognising.

Forms built on one loop

Some music barely changes chords at all. The groove is the form, and the shape comes from what the band adds and takes away.

The vamp. One or two chords repeated. In funk the emphasis falls on the first beat of the bar, the one, and sections are marked by the whole band stopping and by a contrasting bridge. In gospel a song often ends on a vamp, repeated and building; the vamp is one of the genre’s defining devices.

Call and response. In salsa and son, the song’s opening section gives way to the montuno: a sung chorus, the coro, alternates with the lead singer’s improvised lines over a repeating figure. (The piano’s repeating figure under it is also called a montuno; in this section the word means the part of the song.)

Sections and forms29

GressusNo return

The riddim. In reggae and dancehall one backing track, the riddim, can carry many different songs by different singers and DJs (in reggae, a DJ is a vocalist who talks or chants over the riddim). Riddims are voiced many times over. A dub version strips the riddim down, cuts parts out and brings them back, and adds echo to what is left: form made at the mixing desk.

Forms with no return

Through-composed. Every section is new and nothing comes back. Much progressive rock, and some film and art song, is through-composed. It is the far end of the scale from strophic.

From strophic to through-composed: how much comes back is most of what a form is.

Sections and forms30

GressusPunctuation

Part four

How the band marks the form

A band has no conductor. It keeps its place by counting bars, and by sounds every player recognises as something changes here.

The toms and the crash

The toms are the drums around the kit, tuned from high to low; the crash is a loud cymbal struck once. Neither keeps time. They are punctuation: they mark a moment rather than measure one. Because the toms fall in pitch, a run down them sounds as if it is going somewhere. The crash is almost always on beat 1, because what it marks is an arrival.

Fig. 21 — PUNCTUATION

Crash: × above the staff, on a ledger · High tom: 4th space · Floor tom: 2nd space · Kick: bottom space, stem down · Snare: 3rd space

A crash to open the bar, then the toms descending through its second half.

The fill

A short departure from the groove at the end of a phrase, carrying you into the next. It ends on beat 1 of the next bar, the downbeat. The crash and kick there are the fill’s last stroke; the groove picks up straight after.

Fig. 22 — A FILL

High tom: 4th space · Snare: 3rd space · Kick: bottom space, stem down

The fill most drummers meet first: tom and snare splitting each beat in two, the kick staying on the beat underneath.

Marking the form31

GressusFills

Where a fill sits

Fig. 23 — TWO LENGTHS OF FILL

From beat 3 — the half-bar fill

From beat 1 — the whole-bar fill

Hi-hat: × above the staff · High tom: 4th space · Floor tom: 2nd space · Snare: 3rd space · Kick: bottom space, stem down

Two beats is a nudge; a whole bar is an announcement.

A short Fill at the end of every fourth bar marks the phrase; a longer one at the eighth marks the section; the longest comes before the last chorus.

The fill and the cadence arrive together. The fill sits in the bar where the cadence closes the phrase, and the crash lands on the chord that opens the next one. The bass can mark the same moment with a Walk-up, climbing a step at a time into the new chord.

A crash just before beat 1, on the last half-beat of the bar, is a push: the arrival comes early. It is a common way to end a fill, and worth listening for.

The fill is the drummer’s cadence.

Marking the form32

GressusBreaks

Breaks: rest, shot and hold

Hear it

A shot, then a hold, back to back. Both begin with the same attack; one leaves a hole, the other a ringing chord over a running pulse.

A break is the band, or most of it, stopping. A rest or a shot is placed on a beat. A hold is placed on a chord and lasts until the next chord.

Rest

One beat of silence. Place two or more for a longer one.

Shot

Played once, then silence to the end of the bar. Several shots in a row, one at the start of each bar, are stop-time: the band hits and stops, bar after bar, while the singer or soloist carries on.

Hold

Played and sustained, with the timekeeping carrying on underneath.

Breaks mark the form as much as the rhythm. A band that stops dead in the last bar of a verse has told every listener, without a word, that the chorus is next.

Marking the form33

GressusBuild and drop

The build and the drop

A build adds parts as a chorus approaches: the hat opens, the kick doubles, a Push lands into the downbeat. After the chorus, parts are taken away again for the verse, so the next chorus has somewhere to go.

Dance music makes this its whole method. In a breakdown nearly everything is removed; the drop brings the full groove back on a downbeat.

The dub versions and gospel vamps of Part three do the same thing: adding and taking away, so that the form is heard in the texture rather than the chords.

A band tells you where you are by what it adds, what it removes, and when it stops.

Marking the form34

GressusPart five

Part five

A genre is a groove and a form

In a dub mix, parts cut out and brought back, with echo on what is left.

Listen for

The empty first beat. Some players count reggae half as fast, two bars of this count to one of theirs, which puts the drop on 2 and 4.

Genres43

GressusLatin

Latin: salsa and son

Fig. 32 — SALSA

Salsa, in order

ABCB

SongMontuno: coro and leadMamboMontuno

The shape of a salsa arrangement.

Groove

The clave, a two-bar pattern of five strokes, three in one bar and two in the other, that every other part lines up with. Son clave and rumba clave differ in one stroke, the last of the three side: on beat 4 in son, half a beat later in rumba. 3-2 and 2-3 say which side comes first. Over the clave, the bass’s tumbao and the piano’s repeating figure.

Form

The song section first, then the montuno, where the coro alternates with the lead singer’s improvised lines. Horn sections, the mambo, come between.

Signposts

The coro’s entry; the horns.

Listen for

The clave. Once you hear it, every other part sits on it.

Genres44

GressusFolk

Folk and traditional

GressusMetal

Metal

Fig. 36 — METAL

The double kick

Half-time: the snare on beat 3 alone

Crash: × above the staff, on a ledger · Snare: 3rd space · Kick: bottom space, stem down · Hi-hat: × above the staff

Same tempo in both: the second only feels half as fast.

Groove

Palm-muted riffs: the side of the strumming hand rests on the strings by the bridge, so each note sounds as a short, heavy chug, a cousin of Part one’s damped stroke. In the faster styles, and often in the breakdown (below), the double kick: on the kick, played with two pedals.

Form

Verse–chorus, with sections built on a riff.

Signposts

The breakdown, especially in metalcore. In metal the word means something different from the dance-music breakdown of Part four: a slow, heavy section, often in half-time, the snare moved from 2 and 4 to beat 3 alone, so the music feels half as fast at the same tempo.

Listen for

The riff that returns between sections.

Genres48

GressusThe groovebox

Building a groove on the groovebox

Every groove and form above can be built and heard on the groovebox. Each control is named below as it appears on screen, then what it is for.

Fig. 37 — THE GROOVEBOX, AGAIN

Full screen

On the groovebox49

GressusBacking and beat

Choosing a backing

The name at the top of the screen opens the backings, in three groups.

No backing

Silent: the click alone, to count against.

Beat loops

Drums with no chords: Four on the floor (the kick on every beat, Part one’s driving kick) and Backbeat, the plainest grooves of Part one.

Chord loops

A groove with a progression: 12-bar blues (A, shuffled), Pop I–V–vi–IV (C), Jazz ii–V–I (F, swung, on brushes), Rock (E, power chords), 6/8 ballad (D, on brushes).

Each is a starting point. Change anything, and Restore takes you back to the backing as it loaded. With an account, Save loop keeps your version, with a note in your own words about what it is for.

The beat

Play starts and stops the band. Metre sets the time signature, beats first and then the note value. The tempo shows in beats per minute, with the Italian word for it above (Andante, Allegro); change it with − and +, by typing, or by tapping TAP in time.

Bar and Beat count where you are, so 3/12 means bar 3 of a twelve-bar form: the counting of Part two, done for you. Check your own count against it.

On the groovebox50

GressusThe kit

The kit: the Percussion card

The Percussion card is Part one, laid out as a grid. Each row is one part of the kit: Kick, Snare, Hi-hat, Open hat, Ride and Tom, then two rows whose voice you choose. Each column is one division of the beat.

Kit

Acoustic, Brushes or Electronic. Same pattern, a different room.

Grid

How finely each beat is divided, into one, two, three or four: the subdivision of the Metronome page.

A cell

Click once for a hit, again for an accent, again to empty it. Hold to clear; drag across to fill a run.

A row

Mute it, or set its level. Take the hat out and the groove loses its subdivision; take the snare out and it loses its backbeat.

The two choosable rows

Brush swirl, Flat ride, Cross-stick, Clap, Shaker, Tambourine, Cowbell, Crash or Low tom. As Part one says, they double what is there: the shaker with the hat, the tambourine with the snare.

Try it

Build the three kicks of Part one in turn, against the same snare, and listen for what the and of 2 does.

On the groovebox51

GressusThe progression

The progression

The Progression card holds the key and the chords.

The key disc

Sets the key. Changing it moves every chord with it, which is what Roman numerals promise.

The mode

The scale the chords are drawn from: the seven modes, brightest first, and Blues. For every exercise on this page, choose the major scale (Ionian); the modes are laid out on the Fretboard Visualiser page.

The timeline

The form, bar by bar. Click an empty bar to add a chord: its root, then its quality (Major, Minor, Dom 7, Major 7, Minor 7, Sus 4, Sus 2, Major 6, Dim or Power). A gold ring marks the roots that belong to the key and mode; nothing else is switched off.

A chord’s edge

Drag it to move where the chord begins: on the beat, before it or after it.

+ Bar

Lengthens the form. Bars, Beats and Quavers / Eighths zoom the timeline in, for placing a change between beats.

Try it

Build the eight bars of Part two, I IV I V and I IV V I, and play them. Then change the last chord to vi: the interrupted cadence.

On the groovebox52

GressusThe band

The band: Bass, Chords 1 and Chords 2

The cards along the bottom are the band’s other parts. Each has a Voice, an Articulation, a Level and a mute.

Bass

Electric bass or Upright bass. Articulation hold (a long note per chord), chug (repeated notes), or bass line, which opens a choice of patterns: roots on 1 and 3, roots and fifths, octaves, the two-beat, boogie-woogie, disco octaves, the one drop and the gallop among them.

Chords 1 and Chords 2

Piano, four electric guitars from clean to high gain, acoustic guitar, ukulele, or three organs. Articulation hold, arpeggiate (the chord one note at a time) or strum.

The strumming grid

For a strummed guitar or ukulele, the strumming hand of Part one on screen: down-strokes and up-strokes in each division of the beat, each a strike, an accent or a damped chunk. Rhythm offers named patterns, among them Island strum, Calypso, Reggae skank and Reggae chunk, Bo Diddley, Chicken scratch, Cumbia and Rumba flamenca. There is also a waltz strum for 3/4, and a 6/8 strum written as a bar of 4/4 with each beat split into three.

Set one chord part to hold and the other to strum, or give the two guitars different patterns, and you have an arrangement rather than one part played louder.

On the groovebox53

GressusThe marks

The marks: the Flourish rail

Above the chords is a rail for the devices of Parts one and four. Click it at a chord to place one; click a placed mark to remove it.

Push

The chord half a beat early. Not on bar 1, which has nothing before it.

Fill

A drum fill into the chord.

Shot, Rest and Hold

The three breaks.

Walk-up

The bass climbs into the chord.

Try it

Put a fill in bar 4, a longer one in bar 8, and a shot in the last bar of the verse. The loop starts to tell you where you are.

On the groovebox54

GressusPractising

Practising

The column on the right is shared with the Metronome page, which explains it in full.

Swing

The long–short split of each beat, from straight (50) to a hard shuffle. It needs the grid divided into twos or fours.

Click

A metronome over the band, with its own sound, accents, subdivision and level. Off until you want it.

Gap training

Silences the band and the click for whole bars, regularly or at random, so you carry the form through the gap yourself.

Tempo automation

Raises the tempo by a set step every so many times round the form.

Count-in

One bar of click before the band starts, so you begin with the pulse rather than chasing it.

Flash

The beat seen as well as heard: the only version of it you can follow while your own playing is loud.

On the groovebox55

GressusPlaying along

Playing along

Playing with a backing track is a different skill from playing with a click. A click tells you where the beat is; a band tells you where you are in the song.

Learn the form before the notes

Write the sections down as letters, with their bar counts. A wrong note in the right place survives; a right note in the wrong section does not.

Listen for the signposts

Count bars until the form is in your ear, then let the fills, the crashes and the breaks tell you where you are.

Play the changes

Know which chord is coming before it arrives. Hear the cadence approaching rather than finding it.

Take a part away

Mute one part and play its job yourself: keep the time with your strumming, or state the harmony on your own.

Practising against a bare click, and taking it away to test yourself, is on the Metronome page.

Playing along56

GressusQuestions

Common questions

What is the difference between a verse and a chorus?

The words. A verse keeps its music and changes its words; a chorus keeps both, which is why it is the part everyone remembers.

What is the difference between a refrain and a chorus?

A refrain is a line at the end of every verse. A chorus is a section of its own. A song with a refrain and no chorus is strophic.

What is a strophic song?

One in which every verse has the same music and there is no chorus: AAA. Folk ballads, hymns and the blues are strophic.

Is a middle eight the same as a bridge?

Yes. Middle eight is the usual British name, bridge the usual American one; jazz players also say the release. It is often but not always eight bars.

What is AABA form?

A song in four sections, the first two and the last the same, the third a contrast: the bridge. Each is usually eight bars, making the 32-bar song form.

What is a 32-bar song form?

Four eight-bar sections, most often AABA, sometimes ABAC. It was the commonest form of American popular song from the 1920s to the 1950s.

What is rhythm changes?

A standard 32-bar AABA set of chords that jazz musicians have written many new tunes over.

Why is the blues twelve bars?

Three four-bar phrases, one per line of the lyric: a line, the line repeated, and its answer.

Common questions57

GressusQuestions

What is an 8-bar blues?

A blues in two phrases of four bars, with IV arriving in bar 3. A 16-bar blues is usually the 8-bar blues with every chord held twice as long.

What is a turnaround?

The last bar or two of a form: a few chords, often I–vi–ii–V, that send the music back to the beginning. Because it usually ends on V, it usually ends with an imperfect cadence.

Is a perfect cadence the same as an authentic cadence?

Yes: V to I, under its British and its American name. The same goes for imperfect and half, and for interrupted and deceptive.

What is a vamp?

One or two chords repeated, with the band building and thinning over them instead of changing chords. Funk is built on vamps; gospel songs often end on one.

What is a riddim?

In reggae and dancehall, a backing track that carries many different songs by different singers.

What is a drop?

The moment the full groove comes back on a downbeat after a breakdown, in which nearly everything was taken away.

What is the difference between pushing a chord and writing it earlier?

A pushed chord is the next bar’s chord arriving early: the band still treats beat 1 as the change, and the bass and drums mark it. A chord simply moved earlier makes the change at that earlier point, and the band moves with it.

Why do drummers play a fill at the end of a section?

To tell the band, and the listener, that the section is ending. A fill and a cadence usually arrive together.

Common questions58

TOM · Teacher Of Music

The old textbook, brought to life.

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