How can I improve my knowledge about broken beat making (hip hop, trip hop, chill out, etc)?

So for many, many years I have been listening to trance and techno. So 4/4 is how I rolled. Slowly I have been leaning more towards chill out ambient, trip hop and other downbeat music. I am eager to create it, but I have no background in it and I have been listening to for not a very long time.

I understand the logic behind it, I know what broken beat is, I know what syncopated rhythm is. The problem is I can't "read" drums. So let's say I am looking for on how to make a trip hop beat. So I find it's at 70 BPM in a KICK ... KICK SNARE ... KICK KICK KICK ... KICK SNARE pattern. Then I get to the point where I cannot make anything besides that pattern. I try to listen to other music, I recreate the beat sort of and it's the same result. So basically because I have been listening to the same 4/4 drum pattern, even if I learn one broken beat pattern I end up repeating it over and over. Even moving the drums slightly adds no flavor.

I looked around at drumming books, but there is a ton out there, like 100 hundred come up and they are all good apparently. So I am looking for anything that can help in the genres I mentioned, so maybe it's blues, jazz, bop. I honestly don't know. I looked at Funk, but it seems to be more focused on higher BPMs tracks and works really well for jungle/drum and bass tracks. Looking for anything really, searching at Google brings up pretty shallow articles that only mention one or two patterns.

Or perhaps the easiest way is to grab a bunch of loops, repeat and slice them to really get creative?

 

The "Best" way is to do as a drummer would actually do in real life and just keep at it... for hours, days, weeks, months until you start to find something interesting. I am guessing you have had a crack, spent a few hours over a few days, maybe a week and now feel stuck. Sure you can pick up a book, listen to some more music, youtube some results or download some pre-made loops and be done with it but as the tried and true saying goes... practice, practice, practice.

Suggestions: Get a few songs that are of the same style, similar BPM, and do as you have done, create a few loops of them, layer your drums over each one. Then use those elements and mix the ideas between or merge things like the hats or snares to make some new patterns. Play with some effects, play with the groove pool. Expect that for the next year you may make nothing but a few half interesting patterns but it will build skills with every session

 

Yeah the initial push was great, the part where you don't know anything and you learn the form and function, but then get to a point where you don't know what to learn or where to go. Learning harmony and melody is different, you learn keys, chords, chord progressions, inversions, etc, then you just play around with melodies and look for what sounds good.

With drums it's different, I can't get the same beat out of my head for some reason, so really just grabbing on to anything to get some grip on progressing.

Thanks for advice.

 

Keep at it, give it another 6 months at an hour a day and out may get better... seriously, you just need to keep pushing on, make the same crappy beat over and over. I’ll either break through or realize ur just not into it enough. Either way you will have more of an understanding of what you really want.