6/8 Rock Ballad drum pattern
A heavy two-bar 6/8 ballad: kick on 1 and 3, a full backbeat on 4, hats on every eighth and a floor-tom-and-snare pickup on 6 at the end of bar two. Press Play to hear it with a sampled drum kit at 66 BPM, change the tempo or swing, and follow every hit on the grid.
How to count the 6/8 Rock Ballad
Count it as: 1 2 3 4 5 6 · two bars (big beats on 1 and 4). The pattern is a 2-bar phrase in 6/8 (two-bar 6/8 on a 16th-note grid · big backbeat on 4).
The 6/8 Rock Ballad 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- -- -- -- | X- -- x- -- -- x- |
| Snare | -- -- -- X- -- -- | -- -- -- X- -- -x |
| Closed hat | x- x- x- X- o- x- | x- x- x- x- x- -- |
| Low tom | -- -- -- -- -- -- | -- -- -- -- -- X- |
Tempo and feel
Slow, wide and heavy. The snare on 4 is the only loud thing in the bar; feel it as beat 2 of a slow two and let it land late. The default tempo is 66 BPM. Slow it down until every hit is controlled, then raise the tempo a few BPM at a time.
How to practise the 6/8 Rock Ballad
Count six and play the kick on 1 and the snare on 4. Add the hats on every eighth, loud on 1 and 4 and soft between. Add the kick on 3, then the floor tom, snare and kick pickup on 6 of bar two.
Variations to try next
Move the right hand to the ride or a washy open hat for the chorus. Drop the kick on 3 for a sparser verse. Play the bar-two pickup every bar going into the last chorus.
Where to hear this feel
Records in this family include Queen - We Are the Champions and Metallica - Nothing Else Matters. A practice study of the big 6/8 rock ballad, in the tradition of Roger Taylor on Queen's We Are the Champions and Lars Ulrich on Metallica's Nothing Else Matters. It is not a transcription of either record. The backbeat lands on 4, the second big beat of the bar, and sits a little behind; bar two ends with a floor tom and snare on eighth 6 that pull into the next phrase. The BPM counts quarter notes, as in every x/8 groove here, so the dotted-quarter pulse you tap your foot to is two thirds of it; switch the metronome beat unit to dotted to count the big beats.