Cissy Strut Pocket drum pattern
A low-slung second-line funk pocket with a displaced foot, soft snare replies, and a small bar-two hat lift. Press Play to hear it with a sampled drum kit at 96 BPM, change the tempo or swing, and follow every hit on the grid.
How to count the Cissy Strut Pocket
Count it as: 1 e & a 2 e & a 3 e & a 4 e & a · two bars. The pattern is a 2-bar phrase in 4/4 (two-bar New Orleans 16th-note pocket).
The Cissy Strut Pocket 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--x --xx --x- --x- | X--x --xx --x- x-x- |
| Snare | ---- X--- ---- X--- | ---- X--- ---- X--- |
| Ghost snare | ---o ---o ---o ---- | ---o ---o ---o ---o |
| Closed hat | x-o- x-o- x-o- x-o- | x-o- x-o- x-o- x--- |
| Open hat | ---- ---- ---- ---- | ---- ---- ---- --x- |
| Pedal hat | ---- o--- ---- o--- | ---- o--- ---- o--- |
Tempo and feel
Loose in the shoulders, precise in the feet. The ghost notes should sit inside the groove, never on top of the backbeat. The default tempo is 96 BPM. It plays with 52% 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 Cissy Strut Pocket
Loop the kick by itself and keep the subdivision audible. Add the ghost notes at whisper volume. Let bar two lift without speeding up.
Variations to try next
Play the kick cell with cross-stick. Remove the bar-two extra kick. Move the hat accents to ride.
Where to hear this feel
Records in this family include The Meters - Cissy Strut, The Meters - Look-Ka Py Py and New Orleans second-line funk vocabulary. Reference-informed two-bar New Orleans funk study after The Meters' "Cissy Strut". The guitar and organ syncopations are omitted so the compact kick, ghost, and hat conversation remains playable as a drum-set study.