Grooves by Style
Everything here is the same four limbs doing the same jobs. What changes between styles is where the kick sits, how the beat is divided, and how loud the soft notes are.
Rock and pop
The backbeat on 2 and 4 with eighths on the hat. Move the kick and you have most of the radio.
Half-time
Move the snare to beat 3 alone and the bar feels twice as long at the same tempo. Nothing slowed down — the backbeat just comes half as often.
Shuffle
Divide each beat in three and play the first and last of them. That long-short limp is the shuffle, and the count is “one-and-a, two-and-a” with the “and” left out.
6/8
Two beats to the bar, each divided in three. Common in ballads and in a great deal of folk music, including the compound feels the madal room counts in two.
Funk
Sixteenths, a kick that moves constantly, and ghost notes filling the gaps. This one is not harder to read than the rock beat — it is harder to play softly enough, which is the entire style.
On the ride
Same shuffle, moved to the ride cymbal, with the bell marking the beat. The ride's longer decay glues the bar together where a hat chops it up.