Bebop Up-Tempo Ride drum pattern
A two-bar up-tempo bebop ride: spang-a-lang with the hi-hat foot on 2 and 4, no feathered kick, sparse snare comping on the triplet partials and a kick bomb on the let of 3. Press Play to hear it with a sampled drum kit at 220 BPM, change the tempo or swing, and follow every hit on the grid.
How to count the Bebop Up-Tempo Ride
Count it as: 1 trip let 2 trip let 3 trip let 4 trip let · two bars. The pattern is a 2-bar phrase in 4/4 (two-bar eighth-note-triplet ride with sparse comping).
The Bebop Up-Tempo Ride pattern, hit by hit
Each character is one step of the grid and each group is one beat. X is an accented hit, x a normal hit, o a quiet or ghost note and - a rest.
| Voice | Bar 1 | Bar 2 |
|---|---|---|
| Kick | --- --- --- --- | --- --- --x --- |
| Snare | --- --x --- --- | --o --- --- --- |
| Pedal hat | --- x-- --- x-- | --- x-- --- x-- |
| Ride | x-- x-o x-- x-o | x-- x-o x-- x-o |
Tempo and feel
Light and fast. Keep the ride quarter notes long and even; the comping and the bomb are punctuation, not a pattern. The default tempo is 220 BPM. It plays with 67% swing by default; move the Swing control toward 50% to hear it straight. Slow it down until every hit is controlled, then raise the tempo a few BPM at a time.
How to practise the Bebop Up-Tempo Ride
Get the ride and the hi-hat foot flowing at a slower tempo first. Add the snare on the let of 2 in bar one and the let of 1 in bar two. Add the kick bomb on the let of 3 in bar two, then raise the tempo a few BPM at a time.
Variations to try next
Move the Swing control toward 60 percent to flatten the skip notes as the tempo climbs. Answer the bomb with a snare on 4. Play the ride on quarter notes only for a few bars.
Where to hear this feel
Records in this family include Bebop small groups of the late 1940s and 1950s at up tempos. A practice study of up-tempo bebop time on the drum set. The ride carries the pulse in spang-a-lang, with the skip note on the let of 2 and the let of 4 on the triplet grid, and the hi-hat foot closes on 2 and 4. The bass drum is not feathered: in the bebop manner it is kept for occasional accents, the bombs, here one on the let of 3 in bar two. The snare comping (the let of 2, then the let of 1) is one composite example on the triplet partials, and broken time is left out. At this tempo players flatten the skip note toward even eighths; the default keeps it on the triplet, and the Swing control can straighten it. It is authored for practice, not transcribed.