On a sequencer, rhythm is where you put the steps. Played by hand, it’s when your hand goes down and how long it stays there. This section uses the 16-step grid from drum machines to place chord stabs: on the beat, off it, ahead of it, held and swung.
Start this section in the interactive courseA bar of 4/4 has 16 steps, as on a drum machine. Steps 1, 5, 9 and 13 are the four beats, where a four-to-the-floor kick goes. Steps 3, 7, 11 and 15 sit halfway between: the offbeats. The others are the 16ths in between.
Counting helps: “1 e and a, 2 e and a…”, one syllable per step. “And” is the offbeat.
In these exercises the grid shows where to play and an outline moves along it with the bar. The result says whether you were early or late.
A short chord on every offbeat, between the kicks, runs through a lot of deep house and garage. The kick pulls down and the stab pulls up.
Keep it short and even. Lift the hand straight after each stab: the gap matters as much as the chord.
Pick a voicing that barely changes between chords, so the hand only has to go up and down.
Syncopation puts the weight away from the beats. A common shape splits the 16 steps into 3 + 3 + 2, twice: steps 1, 4, 7, then 9, 12, 15. It pushes against a four-to-the-floor kick and gives the bar a lilt.
Another is the push: a stab one step before the beat, so the chord arrives early. Steps 4, 8, 12 and 16 each sit just ahead of a kick.
Count the 16ths under your breath until the shape sits in your hand, then stop counting and listen to it against the kick.
How long you hold a stab changes the groove as much as where it starts. The same steps played short sound tight and percussive; held, they sound smooth and laid back.
A synth with a long release blurs the difference, so practise with a short release first.
The grid shows a held stab as a lighter run of steps after the hit.
Swing delays every second 16th, so steps fall in long-short pairs. Two-step garage and a lot of house use it. On Elektron machines it’s the swing setting; in Live it’s the groove pool.
Steps 2, 4, 6 and the other even steps come late. A stab on one of those has to wait a fraction, which feels lazy at first.
The backing’s hi-hats play every step, so they show where the swung steps fall. Listen to them before you start.
Split each beat into three instead of four and you get triplets: twelve steps a bar instead of sixteen. Count them “1 trip let, 2 trip let…”.
Playing the first and last of each three gives a shuffle, the rolling long-short feel of a lot of broken beat and slower house. It’s close to heavy swing but sits exactly on the triplet grid.
Three evenly spaced stabs across a bar of four beats (steps 1, 5 and 9 of the twelve) is three against four, a cross-rhythm that floats over a straight kick.
Rhythm doesn’t change with the key. Once a stab pattern is in your hand, the only new work is the chord shape.
Find the key’s home chord and its VI chord (sections 4 to 7), voice them close, then put them on the grid.