Kick drums every beat drives an unstoppable pulse - the backbone of disco, arena rock, and hard rock.
Four-on-the-floor is a 4/4 groove with the kick on all four beats, the snare on 2 and 4, and the hi-hat on all eight eighth notes. The constant bass drum removes the space underneath the backbeat and produces the relentless forward pulse used across disco, house and arena rock.
Each column is one eighth note. x is a hi-hat or cymbal stroke, o is a drum.
1 & 2 & 3 & 4 & Hi-Hat x x x x x x x x Snare . . o . . . o . Kick o . o . o . o .
Count the bar out loud as 1 & 2 & 3 & 4 & and add one limb at a time.
On beats 2 and 4 all three limbs strike together. That triple coincidence is the hard part; the rest of the bar is only kick and hi-hat.
Start slow enough to place every note deliberately, lock each rung in before moving up, and only raise the tempo once the pattern is clean. Each step opens the metronome at that tempo.
Ordered by difficulty — the first is the smallest step up.
It means the bass drum plays on all four beats of a 4/4 bar. The name comes from the foot working steadily on the floor pedal, and it describes the pulse of most disco and house music.
The pattern is simpler to read but harder to play evenly, because the kick foot works twice as much and has to stay consistent while the snare hand interrupts it on 2 and 4.
Disco and house sit around 118-130 BPM, rock uses of it are typically 100-140 BPM. Practise it slower than that — around 70-80 BPM — until the kick is even.