Chameleon
Herbie Hancock · 1973
Foundational jazz-funk groove and ghost-note independence study.
- Artist
- Herbie Hancock
- Year
- 1973
- Genre
- jazz-funk
- Drummer
- Harvey Mason
- Tempo
- 108 bpm
- Time
- 4/4
- Feel
- 16th funk
- Difficulty
- intermediate
Drummer's Quick-Start
Practice tempos
Woodshed
64bpm
Building
86bpm
Target
108bpm
The feel
A 16th funk in 4/4 around 108 BPM. A comfortable mid-tempo — lock the backbeat first, then shape the dynamics.
Form
Intro (bass riff) · Head · Keys/Synth Solo · Breakdown · Head · Outro
What to watch
- •Keep the ghost notes a whisper — felt, not heard. They make the groove breathe.
- •Keep the 16th-note hand dead even; let the accents — not volume spikes — do the talking.
- •Funk lives in the hi-hat and the ghosted snare — tighten those before the backbeat.
How to learn it
Well-known tutorials exist for this one — use the links below, and play along from your own copy.
Generated from this song's groove profile — analysis only, no notation. A human-reviewed AI brief with a full groove breakdown, key moments and song map replaces this as briefs roll out.
Learn it
Find drum tutorials on YouTube ↗iDrum links to where lessons already live — we don't host recordings or publish transcriptions. Play along from your own music.
Discussion
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