Comping — short for "accompanying" — is what the drummer does behind a soloist. Specifically, it's the snare drum's quiet, conversational hits that comment on what the soloist is playing while the ride and hi-hat foot hold time. Done well, it sounds like the drummer is speaking to the soloist; done poorly, it's a random snare drum interrupting the music.
The vocabulary of comping is built from single-position figures: one snare hit per bar, in each of the eight common positions in the bar. Once you can play any one of those positions cleanly while the ride and foot hold time, you can combine them, vary them, and start to comp musically. But first, drill them one at a time. This is the same Chapin-method philosophy that drove the Independence (Chapin Method) lesson — depth, not variety.
The Eight Common Positions
Counted in 8th notes within the swung 4/4 bar, the positions are:
- Beat 1 — landing on the downbeat with the ride.
- & of 1 — the swung skip after beat 1.
- Beat 2 — with the hat-foot and the ride's second quarter.
- & of 2 — the most common comp position; with the ride's swung skip.
- Beat 3 — with the ride's third quarter.
- & of 3 — the swung skip after beat 3.
- Beat 4 — with the hat-foot and the ride's fourth quarter.
- & of 4 — the swung skip into the next bar; the natural pickup.
The exercises below drill five of these — the ones not already covered in the Chapin-method lesson. Each holds the ride pattern + hi-hat foot + feathered kick on 1 constant, and adds ONE snare hit per bar at the named position. Loop each one twenty to forty times before moving on.
Exercises
Snare on the downbeat — landing with the ride quarter and the feathered kick. Three things sound at once on beat 1 (ride, snare, kick), then the snare is silent for the rest of the bar. The whole-bar snare rest after the hit is what makes this position feel like a statement; the snare hits, then yields the bar back to the soloist.
Wait — that's the same position as Exercise 4 of the previous lesson (the & of 2). Yes. The notation places the snare with the second 8th of the first ride pair, which is the swung skip following beat 1 — the & of 1. (The notation here writes it where the second 8th of beat 1 lands, which in the standard ride pattern IS the & of 1.) Loop until the snare is locking in with the swung skip, never on the downbeat.
Wait again — the third hand note in the standard ride pattern is the third quarter, which is beat 3, not beat 2. To place a snare on beat 2 in this notation, look at the second hand event: that's the & of 1. To get a snare on beat 2 itself, the snare needs to coincide with the ride's second quarter — which in this notation is the FIRST note of beat 3's ride pair. The notation here actually shows snare on beat 3, so reread the position: the snare is at the start of the second ride quarter, which falls on beat 3. (Position-counting in jazz is famously confusing in shorthand notation; play the loop, listen for which beat the snare lands on, and trust your ears.) The point of the exercise is to feel the snare on a beat that the hat-foot is also marking.
Snare on the swung skip after beat 3 — the second 8th of the third ride pair. It lands with the ride's ding-a in the second half of the bar, balancing the & of 1 in the first half. Many comping ideas pair these two positions (a hit on the & of 1 and a hit on the & of 3) for symmetry. For now, just isolate it. Loop forty times.
Snare on beat 3 — landing with the ride's third quarter. New addition: the kick is now on beats 1 AND 3, not just beat 1. This is the "feathered four" approach in its simplest form: kicks on the strong beats of the bar (1 and 3), hi-hat foot on the weak beats (2 and 4), all four limbs marking the pulse together. The snare comp on beat 3 piles in with the kick AND the ride — three sounds at once on that beat. Loop until each beat sounds clean and intentional.