Displacement Grooves

[maniac0796]

Hey all!

I was talking to Josiah about this earlier and It's intrigued me.

I've been doing Displacement grooves with my drum teacher for the past couple of lessons, and I was just wondering if there are many ways to apply this practically.

For those of you who don't know, Displacement Grooves are basically where you take any groove, and you move some of the lines forward or back a certain sub division.

So say we have this simple groove:


x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-
----o--o----o---
o-o-----o--o----

Now we want to move the Snare and bass lines forward an 8th note (you can do this for any sub division, but we'll stick to 8ths for simplicity.


x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-
------o--o----o-
--o-o-----o--o--

This might seem simple, but put on a pulse whilst sight reading it for the first time and you'll get thrown!

Anyway, back to the original point. Whilst speaking to Josiah, i came to the conclusion the only way you could apply these are:
Independence
Sight Reading
New groove ideas


But I'm wondering for all you people who have encountered these, have you applied them in a non-fusion way?

Mike!

[Byron]

You can have your whole band move over that subdivision for a section, Vinnie Coliauta did it on one of his cds, my drum teacher and I were talking about this recently

[stevensonmat2]

Seems to me you can use this idea any time with any music. I will often push back the snare notes on a groove to give it a lagging feel.

[billdrum]

Weckl uses that technique often...sometimes movin a groove over only a 16th note. He tends to do this behind a solo section as a way to disguise where the beat is and create tension, then resolving the tension as he moves back on beat at some point.

One thing to remember......you can only do this if you are playing with musicians who can grasp what you are doing and keep track of where they are. Its easy to lose less experienced musicians by displacing a groove, even am 1/8th note.

[Det_Nosnip]

Yeah...they'll think you're "off." :p

[Jezen]

I was gonna provide an example of me playing displacement stuff in a band situation, but then I realised that the band is a jazz/fusion band. :-\

[samualbc]

Yeah...they'll think you're "off." :p

Yeah my guitarist has trouble playing when i do this, i'll have to teach him to keep playing when i 'go out of time'. geez!

[M@xwell]

there's really no point trying this kind of thing unless the people you're working with understand it also. they'll stop and start to try and get back with you lol

[sLarkin20]

My drum teacher told me of a clinic he went to a while ago, I think it was Garibaldi but I'm not certain now. He said he went over an idea like that, taking beats and moving everything over 1 note value or whatever, then again, then again, etc etc. Until I guess it would come full circle

[Stickman Sam]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AYDbptv2p_o

^ Vinnie pushing and pulling by 16ths. Not to mention generally tearing it up.

AWESOME.

~~

[the_pure_drummer]

Oh my.....

[TTTSNB]

^ I've been obsessed with that for a while now, hah. Pretty absurd. I love how the beat seems so simple but then it just skips. The tom bit he plays in the breakdown section is pretty sick too.

[Ethan.]

Yeah I like "displacing" the snare hits from the usual 2 and 4, and moving them to 3 and 4+ for instance. And whenever I play something like that with a novice musician they stop and are like "what are you doing?"

It's so easy but that kind of stuff throws people off easily too, even though it might sound good with the music. Inexperenced musicians get so attatched to that 2 and 4 backbeat that sometimes when they hear something different they panic and try to "get back in line" even though they are in line already.

[Det_Nosnip]

To be honest, as impressive as that clip is technically...

I think it sounds like crap.

E Minor Shuffle is much more interesting IMO...it actually has a catchy groove to it, and one can almost forgive the cheesiness of the synth brass.

[jiashen]

^ I've been obsessed with that for a while now, hah. Pretty absurd. I love how the beat seems so simple but then it just skips. The tom bit he plays in the breakdown section is pretty sick too.

haha I love the parts where the guitarist does all those bends.

BTW there's a better quality video of the same performance at drummerworld
http://drummerworld.com/Videos/vinniecolaiutatweaked.html
though the first 2 min are not in there.

And MD March 2007 has a transcript of this song. I was reading it and like wtf?? hahaha.

[Stickman Sam]

To be honest, as impressive as that clip is technically...

I think it sounds like crap.

E Minor Shuffle is much more interesting IMO...it actually has a catchy groove to it, and one can almost forgive the cheesiness of the synth brass.

Oh yes, E Minor Shuffle is lovely, I was just providing that video for a beat displacement example.

Great bass solo in that.

~~

[Fallen_drums]

this can be quite nice to do as a one hand snare fill. so for example you play your standard groove and displace the snare and then bring it back, but that about all i use then for!

[wesm9787]

Is it just me or do half the solos by the drumming greats include that same drum roll? (the part between the toms and snare and bass and cymbals)

[Ethan.]

wtf happened?

[TTTSNB]

haha I love the parts where the guitarist does all those bends.

BTW there's a better quality video of the same performance at drummerworld
http://drummerworld.com/Videos/vinniecolaiutatweaked.html
though the first 2 min are not in there.

And MD March 2007 has a transcript of this song. I was reading it and like wtf?? hahaha.
Yeah. That's agreat issue of MD, I seem to remember it having quite a few good transcriptions up as well, also a nice interview with Vinnie.

[jiashen]

haha ya it's rare to read such thoughtful material in this kind of magazines. I actually had to read a few times to appreciate what he was trying to say, doesn't help that I'm a drumming noob.

[TTTSNB]

You'd be surprised, I've found some pretty good lessons in MD and Rhythm, especially in the jazz sections. Interviews though...yeah the Vinnie one has been one of the few good ones recently.

[Drummer300btx]

that vinnie clip was ok. i wish either i could feel the actual pulse better, or he would spell it out better while still displacing. i think that would sound better than being "fooled" into thinking the beat is somewhere else every bar or so.

[Det_Nosnip]

Right...because, for all intensive purposes, the end result is the same. Even if it's intentional, it sounds bad for the same reason that it would sound bad if he was ****ing up. Impressive? Definitetly. Something that I'd bother learning and ever plan on using? No, not really...