Joey Jordison

Groove · 55–140 BPM

Your hands play the exact same thing every bar. Only the kick moves. This builds the 'my foot goes where I want' skill that everything else depends on.

Goal: Tight, creative kick phrasing under a static groove

Groove · 55–130 BPM

Normally the snare lands on 2 and 4. Here you slide it slightly later each time — onto the 'e', then the '&', then the 'a' — while the hi-hat and kick refuse to move.

Goal: You feel the pulse independently of the backbeat

Groove · 55–130 BPM

Take a groove you already know and shift every single note one 8th-note later in the bar, so beat 1 now lands where the '&' of 4 used to be. It trains you to feel 'one' internally instead of relying on where the notes are.

Goal: A groove that survives being displaced from the bar line

Groove · 55–130 BPM

'Linear' means only one limb sounds at a time — no kick and hi-hat together, ever. It forces your hands off the snare and onto the toms to fill the space.

Goal: Modern linear groove vocabulary you can drop into a fill

Groove · 55–130 BPM

Instead of every backbeat landing on the snare, some of them move to a tom, so the groove itself sounds like a mini fill without ever stopping the pocket.

Goal: Groove vocabulary that sounds composed, not just backbeat-backbeat

Groove · 60–150 BPM

Half-time takes a groove that would normally have the snare on 2 and 4 and moves it so the snare lands only once every two beats-worth — on beat 3 — making everything feel twice as slow and heavy even at the same tempo.

Goal: A big, heavy half-time pocket

Groove · 55–140 BPM

Instead of always playing the hi-hat closed, you let it ring open ('o') on certain notes and snap it shut with your left foot right before the next hit. It's the classic disco/rock 'chick' sound.

Goal: Musical control over open and closed hi-hat sounds