One might be hard pressed to find anything more musically exciting than a good drummer setting fire to a band by laying down a strong, straight-ahead shuffle beat. The shuffle is a very dynamic rhythmic feel. It has been used in a host of diverse musical idioms, ranging from the earliest of the simplistic rhythm & blues drummers to the complex, hard-driving shuffles of heavy metal’s Alex Van Halen. Though the shuffle is basic in nature, there are a number of ways to play a good shuffle. For the uninitiated, let’s first point out that the shuffle is nothing more than the following rhythmic feel: The interest lies, however, in the different ways the shuffle can be stated and moved around the drumset. Quarter-Time Shuffle Let’s begin with a popular method whereby the shuffle feel is stated in the left hand on the snare drum, beneath straight quarter notes in […]

February 1986 Issue