Clean, steady pop grooves with a clear backbeat and a hi-hat you can lock onto. Press Play and the drums keep going until you stop them. Pick a tempo below or set your own anywhere from 50 to 220 BPM.
How a pop drum beat works
Pop drums leave space for the vocal. The pattern repeats with very little variation, so any timing wobble in your own part stands out. That makes a pop groove a good test of whether you can play a simple part in the pocket for three minutes.
How to play along
Keep chords short and rhythmic rather than letting them ring over the whole bar. Match the length of your notes to the hi-hat. Singers can use the kick pattern as the grid for phrasing a verse.
The pop grooves on this page
Billie Jean Pocket is a tight sixteenth-note hi-hat pattern with a solid kick. Motown Pocket puts the snare on every beat, the way soul records drive a chorus. Four-on-the-Floor is the dance-pop option with a kick on every beat.
Common practice tempos
Start with 80, 90, 100, 110, 120 and 128 BPM. Each tempo has its own page with the right groove already selected, so you can bookmark the one you are working on.