The Pocket Isn’t Magic—It’s Geometry
For years, I thought “the pocket” was some mysterious zone that only well seasoned, gifted drummers could find. I’d hear other musicians talk about it like it was an aura. It was like something you either had or you didn’t. And this kind of talk made me question whether it really was real at all. I sometimes wondered if “the pocket” was more about personal vibes than anything in the music.
But then I started studying the most recorded drummers in rock and pop history, and carefully learning their parts note for note. I started to realize how they were able to do so much with so little. They didn’t fill up time with complicated patterns, and yet their drum parts contained subtle nuances and complex shapes which brought the music to life. It felt like magic. But the truth is, the pocket isn’t magic. It’s more like geometry…
What I’ve come to understand is that Groove, and “the pocket” works like a magnetic field. When a drummer is really in the pocket, they create an invisible pull that locks every other instrument—and every listener—into sync. That pull is created through precise timing, subtle dynamics, intentional subdivisions of the beat, and a deep awareness of how each note feels in context with the whole.
This is what makes great drummers like Steve Gadd, Bernard Purdie, and Jeff Porcaro so timeless. They understood how to lay down a feel that was bigger than the sum of its parts. Their drumming wasn't about showing off. It was about shaping energy, grounding the music, and lifting everyone else up.
It’s hard to describe, but the best grooves have this contradictory quality. They seem so simple, and feel so natural. Yet there are little twists and turns which shape the flow of music at just the right time. You only need these twists and turns in key places. It’s a delicate balance of predictability and surprise.
When the drumming starts to add too many surprises, it starts to feel chaotic. It loses energy and flow, becoming stiff and inauthentic. On the other hand, when the drumming doesn’t provide these twists and turns at all, it also loses the energy and flow. If it’s just the same thing over and over, with no inflections or human touch, the groove is dead.
These twists and turns can be something very simple, like an open hi-hat accent on the offbeat placed in the middle or end of a verse. They can be more subtle, like the gradual opening of the hi-hat to move towards a louder, sloshier sound as the verse builds towards the chorus. It’s also important to notice that these twists and turns can happen at multiple time scales, creating nested geometric patterns which breathe life into the music.
They can happen within the subdivisions of the beat, or larger patterns of multiple measures. They can even take place at smaller levels, like the micro-placement of the backbeat where the snare drum hits just slightly behind the beat (behind the beat feel).
With that said, understanding these twists and turns in an intellectual way is only part of the craft. It has to come forth as a natural musical expression in-the-moment. If a drummer tries too hard to force these twists and turns, they become stiff. It’s kind of like trying to match someone’s speaking style by consciously choosing the expression of each word. It’s not effective.
The way to learn how to speak is by listening, and letting your mind absorb a style of expression by exposure. So in drumming if you want to learn to sound like a specific drummer, you’ll have to listen to that drummer a lot. Then you can start to analyze their playing intellectually and pick apart that drummer’s style by copying them note for note. But that’s not enough, eventually, you want to absorb their style into your own vocabulary so that it becomes natural.
If you do this with enough famous drummers, you start to develop your own style. This takes time, and it takes even longer if you don’t know what to look for in their playing. I’ve thought a lot about what kind of twists and turns to look for, and that’s what you’ll learn in my online course, and book, Magnetic Groove. Studying the greatest drummers of all time is an amazing way to develop your voice as a drummer. But you’ll learn much quicker if you have a clear roadmap for the structures and functions of a groove.
Groove is not some esoteric mystery. It’'s a set of tangible, interdependent skills. In my Magnetic Groove course, I break down exactly how to develop these skills and transform your playing. Because the pocket doesn’t come from talent—it comes from training your ears, your body, and your mind to lock into the rhythm in a whole new way. Once you have this training, you can take your playing wherever you want!
The Pocket isn’t magic. It’s Geometry.
