Four-on-the-Floor drum pattern
Kick on every quarter, backbeat on 2 and 4, a soft closed hat on the beats and lifting open hats on the offbeats. Press Play to hear it with a sampled drum kit at 124 BPM, change the tempo or swing, and follow every hit on the grid.
How to count the Four-on-the-Floor
Count it as: 1 e & a 2 e & a 3 e & a 4 e & a. The pattern is one bar of 4/4 (16th-note grid).
The Four-on-the-Floor pattern, hit by hit
Each character is one step of the grid and each group is one beat. X is an accented hit, x a normal hit, o a quiet or ghost note and - a rest.
| Voice | Pattern |
|---|---|
| Kick | X--- X--- X--- X--- |
| Snare | ---- X--- ---- X--- |
| Closed hat | o--- o--- o--- o--- |
| Open hat | --x- --x- --x- --x- |
Tempo and feel
Forward and even. The kick is the floor; the offbeat hats create lift. The default tempo is 124 BPM. Slow it down until every hit is controlled, then raise the tempo a few BPM at a time.
How to practise the Four-on-the-Floor
Make all four kicks equal. Add the soft closed hat on the beats and the open hat on every and. Bring the snare in last.
Variations to try next
Drop the closed hats and keep only the offbeat open hats. Add claps to the backbeat. Drop beat 4 kick for one bar.
Where to hear this feel
Records in this family include Donna Summer - I Feel Love, Chic - Le Freak and Dua Lipa - Don't Start Now. A style study of the disco four-on-the-floor. Earl Young, drummer for MFSB and The Trammps, is widely credited with putting the steady quarter-note kick and the open offbeat hat at the front of early-70s Philadelphia records, and Giorgio Moroder's synthesized "I Feel Love" for Donna Summer (1977) carried the pulse into electronic dance music. It is authored for practice, not transcribed.