Rock ‘N’ Jazz Clinic Grooving in Form AABC by Mike Johnston In our previous lesson (July 2015), we learned how to use the simple song form AABA to create some hip triplet-based grooves. This month we’re going to push the concept further by using three components in our four-beat form. Beats 1 and 2 will serve as the A section, beat 3 will be the B section, and beat 4 will be the C section, which gives us an AABC form. The purpose of learning grooves this way is to give you 75 percent structure with 25 percent left over for improvisation and creativity. When working on this, I think to myself, Okay, it’s a one-measure groove built out of 16th-note triplets, so that gives me a total of twenty-four notes. If I predetermine beats 1, 2, and 4, then I need to create only six notes to fill beat […]

September 2015 Issue