Straight grooves and Shuffle grooves

Here we translate all this stuff into more common language.

So simple tiume signature create straight grooves and shuffle use compund time signatures. Let's look at that a little more closely.

A straight groove is straight because your foot taps straight up and down evenly and every notes either fall on a downbeat or an upbeat, or evenly in the space between. In practice we usually have two types of straight grooves, 8 to the bar straight Rock grooves and 16th note funk grooves. That's not to say that other styles of music don't use these feels but eight to the bar tends to define rock and roll (think Chuck Berry) in the same way that 16th notes grooves define funk (think James Brown). Listen to both of these guys, find the drums and focus in on the hi-hat. You'll hear either eight or sixteen in every bar.

Remember that a 12/8 bar has four beats, each divided into three. It becomes a shuffle when the first two in each beat are joined together. So instead of playing 123 123 123 123, you play 1_3 1_3 1_3. Once you've heard it it'll make sense. !2/8 blues tend to be slower while shuffles usually have a faster tempo.

The best thing to do here is listen to the masters..

Listen to at least two songs from each column and hear how the groove fits the descriptions.