Drum Polyrhythms: 3 Over 2 and 4 Over 3, Made Simple
What a polyrhythm is on the drums, how to hear 3 over 2, 3 over 4 and 4 over 3, and how to turn one into a groove. Playable notation and drum kit view.
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Polyrhythms have a reputation for being advanced. They aren’t, really. If you can play a shuffle, you’ve already got the grid most of them live on.
A polyrhythm is two different evenly spaced rhythms played at the same time. “3 over 2” means three notes evenly spaced in the time of two. On the drums, that usually means your feet keep one rhythm and your hands play the other.
The trick is to stop counting both. Count the one you already feel — the beat — and let the other one sit on top of a grid you can see.
3 over 2
Split each beat into a triplet: “1-trip-let, 2-trip-let”. The bass/kick plays every beat. The hand plays every other note of the triplets. Over two beats that’s three hand notes against two bass/kick notes, and the two only meet on the first.
Position follows the click, including through silent gap-click bars.
Listen to it before you play it. Most people hear it straight away as a rhythm they already know — it’s all over African music, Latin music and a lot of rock.
3 over 4
Now stretch it. The bass/kick still plays four beats, but the hand plays three notes evenly across the whole bar — one every four triplets. It sounds slower than the beat, and that pull against the pulse is exactly what makes it useful.
Opens the metronome, drum kit and sticking for this exercise. One at a time, so the click always belongs to what you are playing.
4 over 3
Turn it round: a bar of 3/4 split into sixteenths, so twelve notes. The bass/kick plays the three beats; the hand plays every third sixteenth, which gives four evenly spaced notes in the same bar.
Opens the metronome, drum kit and sticking for this exercise. One at a time, so the click always belongs to what you are playing.
Turning a polyrhythm into a groove
Polyrhythms only matter when they make music. Take the 3 over 2, put it on the hi-hat or ride, and add a half-time backbeat: the bass/kick on 1, the snare on 3. Suddenly it’s a groove with a pull to it that a straight beat doesn’t have.
Opens the metronome, drum kit and sticking for this exercise. One at a time, so the click always belongs to what you are playing.
Practise them like anything else: one small target at a time. Can you hold the 3 over 2 for four bars without the hand drifting back to the beat? That’s the goal. When it’s solid, add the snare.
Everything here sits on the triplet grid, so if triplets feel wobbly, that’s the place to start.
