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Lesson 4 of 4
  • Year 7

Creating variation to a fundamental drum groove

I can alter a fundamental groove to create variation as the music develops.

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Lesson 4 of 4
New
New
  • Year 7

Creating variation to a fundamental drum groove

I can alter a fundamental groove to create variation as the music develops.

Copyrighted materials: to view and download resources from this lesson, you’ll need to be in the UK and

Copyrights help

These resources will be removed by end of Summer Term 2025.

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Lesson details

Key learning points

  1. Repetition in drum grooves is important, but adding some contrast can create interest.
  2. Contrast works well at the end of a phrase and can be added in the following ways:
  3. adding new rhythms and sounds on a separate track
  4. altering the fundamental groove
  5. keeping the same pattern but using a different part of the drum kit (e.g. ride cymbal)

Keywords

  • Crash cymbal - a medium to large size cymbal used for dramatic efffect on the drum kit

  • Phrase - a section of a piece of music, often 2 or 4 bars long

  • Rhythm - a selection of long and short note durations in a pattern; all drum grooves have a rhythm

Common misconception

Pupils try to record their new ideas into one of the pitched instrument tracks.

Demonstrate this error before they have time to improvise new ideas.


To help you plan your year 7 music lesson on: Creating variation to a fundamental drum groove, download all teaching resources for free and adapt to suit your pupils' needs...

Encourage pupils to keep their musical ideas simple and only make small changes to the groove. Show an example of where the changes can become too busy before they improvise their new ideas.
Teacher tip

Equipment

A DAW or other suitable compositional tool or instrument

Licence

This content is © Oak National Academy Limited (2025), licensed on Open Government Licence version 3.0 except where otherwise stated. See Oak's terms & conditions (Collection 2).

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