Hope this makes sense.

When I make up a new drum pattern I like get started with what I call the "binary" method.
Take 4/4 time, you have four beats. If a quarter note is 0 and two 1/8 notes are 1, there 16 combinations:

0000
0001
0010
0011
0100
0101
0110
0111
1000
1001
1010
1011
1100
1101
1110
1111

Old time programmers know this by heart. (If I didn't mistype anything).

I'll pick three at random, call them a,b,c. Then make a basic drum track of a,b,a,c
Like 1010, 0001, 1011, and da-da are two 1/8's and da is a quarter, would go:
da-da da da-da da | da da da da-da | da-da da da-da da | da-da da da-da da-da |

So I have a four bar drum pattern.

Of course there are infinite variations. Leave some out, triplets. And fills of course.


- Bud