Jazz and swing drum patterns.

10 jazz and swing patterns at 160 BPM. Play one, change any step, take it to your DAW as MIDI.

Jazz time lives on the ride cymbal, not the snare. The pattern is a quarter note, then two swung eighths, repeated: ding, ding-da-ding. The hi-hat closes on two and four with the foot, the kick is felt rather than heard, and the snare comes in only to answer what the soloist is doing. These patterns sit on a twelve-step bar, three steps to a beat, so the swung eighth is a real triplet in the grid itself rather than a sixteenth pushed late; the swing control stays off.

Ride pattern. Twelve steps to the bar, three to a beat: ride on steps 1, 4, 6, 7, 10 and 12, hat foot on 4 and 10, which is two and four: the spang-a-lang.

Ride
Hat

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Feathered kick. The ride pattern with the second kick on every beat under it, felt more than heard.

Ride
Hat
Kick 2

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Comping snare. Snare on the last triplet of two and the last triplet of three, the way a drummer answers the piano.

Ride
Hat
Kick 2
Snare

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Ballad, brushes feel. Slow, the ride on every beat, rim on two and four, the shaker on every triplet for the brush sweep.

Ride
Shaker
Rim

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Up-tempo. At 240 the same six ride hits and the hat on two and four carry the time, with a kick on one only.

Ride
Hat
Kick 2

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Latin jazz, straight. Straight eighths on the ride, the kick in a tumbao on 1 and the and of two and four, rim clave.

Ride
Hat
Rim
Kick

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Two bars, comping. Bar two answers with a snare on the last triplet of one and of three and a kick on the last triplet of four: a phrase instead of a loop.

Ride
Hat
Kick 2
Snare

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Brushes, medium. The ride pattern played soft, the shaker on every triplet for the sweep, a rim on two and four.

Ride
Shaker
Rim

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Four on the floor, swing. The kick on every beat at full weight under the ride: the swing-era dance beat.

Ride
Hat
Kick

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Hat on two and four only. Nothing but the hat foot on two and four, on the triplet grid so the ride drops straight back in: the time a drummer keeps under a bass solo.

Hat

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How a jazz and swing beat is built

Hats and the ride

Then a variation: Feathered kick

The bar has twelve steps and every beat is three of them. Put the ride on steps 1, 4, 6, 7, 10 and 12: the quarter on one, the quarter on two with the skip note on the last triplet after it, the quarter on three, the quarter on four and its skip note. The hat goes on steps 4 and 10, beats two and four, and nowhere else. That alone is jazz time at 160. The feathered kick adds the second kick row on every beat, so quietly a listener only notices if it stops. Comping is the snare on the last triplet of two (step 6) and the last triplet of three (step 9), or anywhere that answers the piano. The ballad slows to 60 with the ride on every beat and the shaker on every step for brushes. Up-tempo at 240 keeps the same six hits; real drummers straighten the skip note at that speed, and the grid holds it on the triplet, which is where it starts. Latin jazz goes back to the sixteen-step bar, plays the ride in straight eighths and puts the kick in a tumbao with a clave on the rim.

More drum patterns

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Questions.

What tempo is swing?

Anything from 60 for a ballad to 300 for a burner; medium swing sits at 140 to 180, and the grid opens at 160. The ride pattern is the same at every speed; what changes is how far the skip note moves toward a straight eighth as the tempo rises.

Why is the kick so quiet in jazz?

Because the bass player has the low end and the kick's job is to keep time for the drummer, not the band. Feathering means playing it on every beat so softly it blends with the bass. On the grid that is the second kick row, the softer of the two kicks.

Why twelve steps instead of the swing control?

The grid's swing control delays the odd sixteenths, which gives a sixteenth-note swing: right for hip hop, wrong for a ride pattern, whose skip note sits on the last third of the beat, a place no delayed sixteenth reaches. Twelve steps to the bar put a step exactly there. If you want the skip note straighter, the way it goes at fast tempos, the sixteen-step grid with the ride on 1, 2-and, 3 and 4-and is the straight version.

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