Squarepusher beat

This came out of a mistake by a student, when we were working on some basic ghost note materials. Some things considered to be “advanced” come up naturally in the form of mistakes and general indiscipline. My student's timing was wrong for what was written on the page, but it was perfectly in time for this kind of techno beat— he mentioned Squarepusher, so that's what we'll call it.  

Here are some things to play with, starting with the seed idea: 

You can see sort of what's happening there— ordinary 16th note ghost note stuff, with some notes offset by a 32nd note, maybe doubled, and extended a little bit, with the goal of sounding hyper and disjointed. 

Tempo and sound should be frenetic. Eventually. Crank your snare drum, or play them on one of those useless little 10" snares. Add bass drum as you see fit. 

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Groove o' the day: more Public Enemy

...aaand another rocking groove from The Bomb Squad, this time on Bring The Noise, from Public Enemy's It Takes A Nation Of Millions... album. Again, this is a composite of programmed and sampled grooves, which is mainly reflected in the bass drum part. What really makes this one is the accenting on the hihat, so be sure to nail that:

This fill happens several times throughout the song:

The audio:

Groove o' the day: The Bomb Squad — Night of the Living Baseheads

There was a period in time when hip hop really rocked. This is the groove from Night Of The Living Baseheads, from Public Enemy's album It Takes A Nation Of Millions To Hold Us Back. I've credited the production team The Bomb Squad for the drum groove, which is a composite a programmed part and at least one sample. There were trade-offs to make human-playable beat; there are some additional unaccented notes on the snare drum, which you might be able to pick out and play, if you switch to a straight 8th note rhythm on the hihat.  

This fill occurs several times throughout the song— the programmed hihat part isn't normally playable, so you can figure out something that will work based on what you're doing with the main groove:

The song— play it loud: