Tony Williams-Style Ride drum pattern
A two-bar fast modal jazz ride: spang-a-lang with the hi-hat foot on every beat, a kick accent on the let of 2 and sparse snare comping on the triplet partials. Press Play to hear it with a sampled drum kit at 280 BPM, change the tempo or swing, and follow every hit on the grid.
How to count the Tony Williams-Style 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 the hi-hat on every beat).
The Tony Williams-Style 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 --- | --- --- --- --x |
| Pedal hat | o-- x-- o-- x-- | o-- x-- o-- x-- |
| Ride | x-- x-o x-- x-o | x-- x-o x-- x-o |
Tempo and feel
Fast, light and urgent. The ride and the four hi-hat chicks lock into one sound; everything else is punctuation. The default tempo is 280 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 Tony Williams-Style Ride
Play the ride with the hi-hat foot on all four beats at half tempo. Keep the hi-hat chicks even, with 2 and 4 a little stronger. Add the snare comping and the kick accent, then bring the tempo up.
Variations to try next
Close the hi-hat on 2 and 4 only to hear the difference. Move the Swing control toward 60 percent as the tempo climbs. Play the ride on quarter notes only at the fastest tempos.
Where to hear this feel
Records in this family include Miles Davis Quintet live recordings of the mid-1960s at fast tempos. A practice study of the fast modal jazz time associated with Tony Williams in the mid-1960s: spang-a-lang on the ride with the skip note on the let of 2 and the let of 4, and the hi-hat foot on every beat instead of only 2 and 4, a steady chick under the cymbal. The bass drum is kept for accents, here one on the let of 2 in bar two, and the snare comping on the let of 3 and the let of 4 is one composite example on the triplet partials; his broken, conversational time is left out. At this tempo the skip notes flatten toward even eighths; the default keeps them on the triplet, and the Swing control can straighten them. It is authored for practice, not transcribed.