What Is Hip
Tower of Power · 1973
Benchmark linear funk with intricate ghost notes and hi-hat work.
- Artist
- Tower of Power
- Year
- 1973
- Genre
- funk
- Drummer
- David Garibaldi
- Tempo
- 116 bpm
- Time
- 4/4
- Feel
- linear 16th funk
- Difficulty
- advanced
Drummer's Quick-Start
Practice tempos
Woodshed
70bpm
Building
92bpm
Target
116bpm
The feel
A linear 16th funk in 4/4 around 116 BPM. A comfortable mid-tempo — lock the backbeat first, then shape the dynamics.
Form
Intro (funk groove) · Verse · Chorus · Horn Breaks · Verse · Chorus · Vamp · 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.
- •It's linear — no two limbs strike together; keep the flow perfectly even.
- •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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