Thursday, June 14, 2012

Groove o' the day: Billy Cobham in 7/8

Today we have another odd-meter Billy Cobham groove from the track "b. Spectrum" from his 1973 album Spectrum:





He plays the unaccented notes stronger than is customary today, and puts a light accent on the last note of the triplet; the natural sticking for that is LRL. If you're looking for opportunities to make variations, easy things would be to add a bass drum on the & of 2, or play it along with the hihat on the "&-a's" of 1 and 3.

From early in the track, here's a variation without the 16th note triplet, with an extra open hihat, and a different second beat:



YouTube audio after the break:

Cue this to 5:45:

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