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Steely Dan · 1977
A definitive recorded example of the Purdie half-time shuffle with ghost notes.
- Artist
- Steely Dan
- Year
- 1977
- Genre
- jazz-rock
- Drummer
- Bernard Purdie
- Tempo
- 94 bpm
- Time
- 4/4
- Feel
- half-time shuffle
- Difficulty
- advanced
Drummer's Quick-Start
Practice tempos
Woodshed
56bpm
Building
76bpm
Target
94bpm
The feel
A half-time shuffle in 4/4 around 94 BPM. A comfortable mid-tempo — lock the backbeat first, then shape the dynamics.
What to watch
- •Keep the ghost notes a whisper — felt, not heard. They make the groove breathe.
- •Lock the shuffle triplet; the #1 mistake is letting it straighten out as you speed up.
- •Feel the backbeat on beat 3. Resist collapsing it into a straight-time groove.
- •Advanced: isolate the single hardest bar and loop it slowly before ever playing along.
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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