laid-back timing
Laid-back timing means placing notes a little behind the beat, either behind a click or behind the time kept by the rest of the band. Jazz musicians call it “laying back” and use it as an expressive choice: a soloist or drummer who sits just after the pulse makes the music feel unhurried and heavy, […]
ghost note
On the drums a ghost note is a very soft stroke, usually on the snare, played between the main accents. A typical funk or hip hop groove has a loud snare on two and four and a scattering of quiet ghost strokes on the sixteenth notes in between; in notation they are often shown in […]
groove
In jazz, funk and hip hop, a groove is the repeated rhythmic pattern, usually from drums and bass together, that sets the dominant feel of a piece. Being “in the groove” describes musicians locked together so that the time feels effortless. Groove depends less on the notes than on their placement and weight: small accents, […]
head
In jazz, the head is the composed theme of a tune, the recognisable melody with its chords. A typical small-group performance follows a “head-solos-head” plan: the band states the head clearly, then each soloist improvises over repeated cycles of the same chord structure, and finally the head returns, sometimes with more freedom than the first […]
backbeat
The backbeat is the emphasis on the second and fourth beats of a bar in 4/4 time, rather than on the first and third. In most pop, rock, soul and hip hop the snare drum supplies it, while the kick drum takes the first beat: count “one, TWO, three, FOUR” and the capitals are where […]
blue note
A blue note is a pitch bent below its normal position in the major scale, most often the third and the seventh degrees and sometimes the fifth. In the key of C that means notes around E♭, B♭ and G♭, though singers, guitarists and horn players often aim between the flat and natural pitch, sliding […]
blues scale
The blues scale, in its most common form, has six notes. In C it is C–E♭–F–G♭–G–B♭: the minor pentatonic scale (C–E♭–F–G–B♭) with one extra note, the flattened fifth G♭, squeezed between F and G. The flat third, flat fifth and flat seventh are the scale’s blue notes, which clash deliberately with the major chords of […]
borrowed chord
A borrowed chord is one taken from a key that shares the same tonic but has a different mode, most often a minor chord used in a major key. Theorists call the technique modal mixture or modal interchange. In C major the parallel key is C minor, and the usual borrowings are F minor (F–A♭–C) […]
brushes
Brushes are drumsticks that end in a fan of thin metal wires or, in more recent designs, nylon or plastic bristles. They are much quieter than wooden sticks. Drummers use them in two main ways: tapping, for light, crisp hits, and sweeping, dragging the bristles across the snare drum head to create a continuous swish […]
call and response
Call and response is a pattern in which a leader sings or plays a phrase, the call, and a group or another instrument replies, the response. It is found in many cultures, but it is especially deep-rooted in African and African American traditions, from work songs, where the rhythm of the singing matched the rhythm […]