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Cold Sweat

James Brown · 1967

Early funk groove that helped define the genre's feel.

Artist
James Brown
Year
1967
Genre
funk
Drummer
Clyde Stubblefield
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.

What to watch

  • •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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