Press Play for a funk drum beat at 90 BPM. It starts with Cissy Strut Pocket, and you can switch to Funky Drummer, Superstition Pocket, Purdie-Style Straight Funk, Stubblefield-Style Ghosts, Two-Handed Hat Funk, Second-Line Funk and Afrobeat Pulse. One beat lasts 667 ms.
Playing over a funk drum beat at 90 BPM
90 BPM is at the slow end for funk. Slow tempos show every timing slip, so it is the best place to learn a new part: play it until it feels boring, then move up.
What plays at 90 BPM
Cissy Strut Pocket is written at 92 BPM, so 90 BPM is its home tempo. In 4/4 at this tempo a quarter note lasts 667 ms, an eighth note 333 ms and a sixteenth 167 ms, which is the spacing of the hi-hat you hear. Switch to Funky Drummer, Superstition Pocket, Purdie-Style Straight Funk, Stubblefield-Style Ghosts, Two-Handed Hat Funk, Second-Line Funk and Afrobeat Pulse on the page and the tempo stays at 90 BPM.
How long is a phrase at 90 BPM?
Knowing how long a phrase lasts helps you plan a song, a solo or a recording take. The drums play a fill at the end of every four or eight bars, so these are the lengths you will hear.
Phrase lengths at 90 BPM
Length
Time
One bar of 4/4
2.7 seconds
Four-bar phrase
11 seconds
Eight-bar section
21 seconds
Three-minute song
about 68 bars
How a funk drum beat works
Funk lives on the sixteenth notes. The kick lands on off-beats, quiet ghost notes fill the snare line, and the hi-hat keeps a steady sixteenth grid. Everything else in the band plugs into that grid, so the job is to feel all four sixteenths of every beat.
How to play along
Guitarists: keep your strumming hand moving in sixteenths the whole time and only let the strings speak on some of them. Bassists: lock to the kick and leave rests; the space is part of the groove. Start slower than you think and speed up only when the muted strokes are even.